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THE LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

And Other Papers 



THE 

LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

AND OTHER PAPERS 



BY 

ARCHIBALD MacMECHAN 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

;Cbe ftitiersiOc jpccjSjS Cambridge 
1914 






COPYRIGHT, I9I4, BY ARCHIBALD MACMKCHAN 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 

Published October IQ14 



OCT 15 1914 

*>CI.A379994 



To Doctor "Eben" Mackay 

Although daily intercourse for twenty years 
affords the amplest warrant for pronouncing on 
a mans character, I find that the conventions 
which hedge about a dedication debar me from 
proclaiming my opinion of yours. Still one hint 
I will hazard. Had Bunyau knoivnyou, he could 
have added some finer toucJies to his portrait of 
Faithful. For twenty years zve have worked 
side by side in harmony ; and now, in the in- 
stitution we serve, we begin to see what we fore- 
saw. The generous Little College has given me 
much, — work, with time to think, bread, and 
a loyal friend; and so, in recognition of these 
great gifts, I desire to honour myself by associ- 
ating — without your knowledge or consent — 
these little college essays and your name. 



CONTENTS 

The Life of a Little College i 

Little College Girls 37 

The Vanity of Travel 53 

Tennyson as Artist 83 

Browning's Women — the Surface . . . .121 

This is our Master 141 

Child of the Ballads 165 

"The Best Sea-Story Ever Written" . . .179 
Evangeline and the Real Acadians . . .199 

Everybody's Alice 233 

Virgil 273 



Note. Several of these essays have already been published in The Atlantic 
Monthly, The Independent, and The University Magazine. By the kind per- 
mission of D. C. Heath and Co., I am enabled to reprint part of my introduc- 
tion to Select Poems by Tennyson, copyright, 1907. 



THE LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 



THE LIFE 
OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 



THERE may appear a certain degree of imperti- 
nence in a college which is neither old nor famous 
venturing to have a history of its own. But history is 
largely a matter of right perception into the real nature 
and true proportions of things. All education is a 
movement of the race towards the light, and wherever 
men have organized to spread the light, there history has 
been made. Only the seeing eye is needed, and the un- 
derstanding heart, and the diligent pen to set the story 
down. The claim of the little unknown college to recog- 
nition by the world is not absurd, for its history is the 
history of an idea. 

For that idea a romantic background was provided by 
the alarms and splendours of a world-wide war. The 
nations took sides with or against the Corsican, and the 
years were rilled with battles by land and sea. One 
stanch little British province, which had stood fast 
when her sister colonies revolted, now bore her share 
of loss and glory with the Motherland. The provincial 
capital, founded as a military necessity, has seen three 



4 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

great wars. Though more than once in danger of assault 
and capture, she has remained a maiden city. In war- 
time the harbour was constantly filled with ships, and 
the streets were thronged with soldiers, coming and going 
on their divers errands. Smart frigates and dashing 
privateers made port almost daily with their captures. 
Prize money flowed in rivers, and civic life was a rich, 
gay pageant. In the last months of the war, a small ex- 
pedition, so many transports, with details of so many 
regiments, escorted by so many men-of-war sailed out of 
the harbour one day ; destination, as the newspaper said, 
unknown. Their destination was a hostile port which 
they took without much ado and held and ruled for 
more than half a year. When peace was declared, the 
forces came back with some ten thousand pounds ster- 
ling in the military chest. That sum of money won in 
war formed the original endowment of the little college. 
For more than a twelvemonth, the money lay un- 
touched, until the man came upon the scene with the 
idea. He was a Scottish earl who had been a schoolmate 
of Sir Walter's at Edinburgh and had attained high 
distinction in the army. He had served his king with 
honour in every quarter of the globe, and, now that the 
Corsican was safe in St. Helena, he was made governor 
of the province of Ultima Thule. On his arrival there, 
he found the sum of ten thousand pounds in the treas- 
ury, without a definite object to expend it on. The 



LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 5 

needs of the little province were many. It needed roads; 
and as continuous war had been the rule for more than a 
generation, it was supposed to need a highly organized 
militia to be ready for the next rupture of peace. But 
what this soldier decided that the raw, struggling prov- 
ince chiefly needed was not good roads, or a canal, or 
a trained citizen soldiery, or a complete survey of her 
unexplored domain, but college education on a new 
principle. It was a strange idea to find lodgment in the 
brain of a military man. 

This was all the stranger, as Ultima Thule possessed 
one college already. The province had been given its 
essential character by the Tories who had been driven 
out of the Thirteen Colonies, when they set up for 
themselves. The first thing these exiled loyalists did 
was to provide for religion, literature, and education by 
ordaining a bishop, founding a monthly magazine, and 
establishing a college. On this last they imposed the 
model of Oxford, as they could not conceive of any 
better, or indeed of any other, system. One fine old 
crusted Tory, an Oriel man, by the way, insisted upon 
the Laudian statutes going into force. These enjoined 
on all students residence within the college, attendance 
at chapel as a matter of course, subscription to the 
Thirty-nine Articles on entrance and on receiving a 
degree, and abstinence from seditious meetings and 
dissenting conventicles. The comedy of the situation 



6 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

lay in the fact that the faithful, who were entitled to the 
privileges of higher education, were few, and that the 
college was supported by public money drawn from 
the pockets of those very dissenters who were excluded 
from it by the constitution of the college. 

It was not a military problem, but the soldier-gover- 
nor solved it by creating a new college based on the 
broad principle of " toleration." No religious test was to . 
be demanded of either professors or students; the classes 
were to be open to all sects and confessions; there was 
no provision for residence; students were free to lodge 
where they pleased; the townsman or the military officer 
might pay his fee and attend a single course of lectures 
without the restraints of a discipline designed for boys. 
Instead of being planted in a small country town, the 
new college was to be in the capital, in the centre of 
things, thus anticipating the modern rule for the most 
desirable location of seats of learning. The new institu- 
tion was to be in fact a little Edinburgh, as its rival was 
a little Oxford. So the forces were set in array over 
against each other, and the battle was joined. On the 
one side the aristocratic ideal, conservative, exclusive; 
on the other, the democratic ideal, liberal, comprehen- 
sive. Nearly a century has passed, the battle has been 
long and hard; but the victory of the liberal idea is 
decisive and overwhelming. Even the conservative 
college has been forced to accept it. 



LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 7 

For endowment of the new college, the governor ad- 
vised the use of the unexpended ten thousand pounds 
in the military chest. So the college was founded by a 
soldier with money taken in war, and it had to fight for 
its life. It is not strange that in due time such a college 
should bring forth soldiers and have a war record. 
Fundator noster was a small man physically; his title was 
the Earl of Lyttil, being the ninth bearer of that distinc- 
tion; and so it was all in a concatenation accordingly 
that the institution he founded should be known as the 
Lyttil College, as it is unto this day. All the alumni are 
proud to be known as Lyttilites and to wear the ancient 
cognizance of the noble earl, an eagle, proper, displayed, 
on a field argent. 

Dolcefar, the capital of Ultima Thule, was founded as 
a naval and military station to counterpoise another 
colonial city of "our sweet enemy France," a strong city, 
once, of ten thousand inhabitants, which has been a 
ruin, where fishermen dry their nets, for more than a 
hundred years. Seated beside her wonderful triple har- 
bour, the provincial capital was laid out by military engi- 
neers in accordance with the mediaeval idea of a fortified 
town. It must be compact for the greater ease of de- 
fence. In the very centre was a square which is known 
to this day as the "Grand Parade." Here the ancient 
British Grenadiers were mustered and drilled; here 
guard was mounted daily with stately ceremony; here 



8 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

the early provincial laws were published by the provost- 
marshal after notice by beat of drum. For a century 
and more it was the heart of the quaint provincial town, 
always full of colour and movement. And here was built 
the first home of the Lyttil College. It was not a large 
building, but a certain simple, austere dignity was 
impressed — who knows how? — upon the stone and 
mortar. Some Scottish architect made the college as 
Scottish in character as its founder. 

There was one great day to be marked for evermore 
with white in the calendar of the Lyttil College, the 
day the corner-stone was laid of the old building. In 
the early nineteenth century, the mediaeval instinct and 
capacity for pageants had not yet died out; and it was 
still possible to make a civic function picturesque and 
impressive. This was a grand occasion. The red-coats, 
with colours flying and music playing, made a lane 
from Government House to the Parade, through which 
passed in stately procession His Excellency the Gover- 
nor, accompanied by the civil magistrates, his glittering 
staff, and a train of army and naval officers in scarlet 
and blue and gold. The grandmaster of the Masons met 
the procession at the southeast angle of the low, rising 
walls. Christian prayers were said, the stone was low- 
ered into its appointed place, and duly tapped with a 
silver trowel in the hand of the noble earl. Then coins 
were deposited in the cavity, which was thereafter 



LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 9 

sealed by the identical brass plate which is preserved in 
the present library of the Lyttil College. Symbolic corn 
and wine and oil were poured over the stone in pagan 
libation, fine speeches were made, and then the good 
people dispersed and left the new seminary for the 
higher branches of learning to struggle for existence. 
For more than forty years the history of the Lyttil 
College was the history of a building. These were its 
Dark Ages, during which, except for one brief interval, 
it was used for every possible purpose except the one for 
which it was designed. A museum, a debating-club, a 
mechanics' institute, a post-office, a music-master and 
his pianos, an infant school, an art club, a hospital, and a 
pastry-cook's shop all found shelter at different times 
beneath its hospitable roof. The post-office had quar- 
ters there for years and paid a goodly rent, but the 
infants' school, the mechanics' institute, and the mu- 
seum got house-room free. The imagination is taken 
with the tale of the art club, as related by an original 
member, a gentleman of the old school, who wore a 
neckcloth and was in his heyday in the thirties of the 
nineteenth century. It consisted of about twenty ladies 
and gentlemen from the town and garrison, who united 
for the cultivation of painting, and it was by no means 
a mere pretense or a refuge for fashionable idlers. In- 
deed, the productions of the old gentleman's brush, 
which used to hang on the walls of his low-ceilinged 



io LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

study, amply confirmed his words. The governor, a 
Waterloo veteran, himself an artist of no mean ability, 
was the president of the club as long as it lasted. Every 
spring these daring amateurs gave a public exhibition of 
their work. 

It must have been a very pleasant club ; the old gentle- 
man's recollections of it were rose-coloured. The mem- 
bers were chosen with the greatest care, the patron was 
the King's representative and held a little court in 
Government House. Between the lights, when it was 
impossible to work, the pretty girls and titled ladies 
organized impromptu dances, for there was a piano in 
one of the rooms and orderlies were always in attendance 
to shift the easels and the stools. It lasted three years, 
but in the fourth there was no show of pictures in May, 
no aristocratic patron, no society. That was the terrible 
cholera year, when the air was thick with the smoke of 
tar-barrels burning on every street-corner to stay the 
plague, and the fear of sudden, agonizing death stared 
every one in the face. The Lyttil College was turned 
into a hospital ; and instead of painting officers and danc- 
ing Lady Marys, the rooms were crowded with ghastly 
sufferers and their helpless, terrified attendants. The 
ambulance, with its green cotton hood, was always busy, 
bearing the smitten to the wards, or taking corpses 
away for hasty burial. As many as eighteen dead bodies 
would be carried out of a sultry August morning beneath 



LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE n 

the pompous Latin inscription on the three stone slabs 
surmounting the doorway. 

In due time the Dark Ages came to an end, and the 
Renaissance of the Lyttil College followed, as spring 
follows winter. Various attempts had been made to 
operate the college as a college, but they ended in failure, 
and the governors were forced time and again to close its 
doors and "allow the funds to accumulate." This sad 
period is one wearisome tale of incompetency, detrac- 
tion, plot, counterplot, petty provincial jealousies, legis- 
lative stupidities, and faction fights. If a college could 
be killed by mismanagement, negligence, and spite, the 
Lyttil College would now be only a name on a grave- 
stone. But the liberal idea outlived its enemies. At last 
a few wise strong men, who believed that union was 
strength, rallied warring sects to its support, and set it 
definitely on its feet. The reorganization merely ex- 
panded the original plan now nearly half a century old ; 
and since then the growth of the college has been steady 
and strong. Like all hitherto discovered colleges, it 
suffers from lack of funds. At one time, the statistical 
don proved beyond a doubt that at a given date the 
college must close its doors. But just in the nick of time 
the Benefactor made his appearance. He was an ex- 
patriated provincial who was making a fortune in the 
neighbouring republic. He endowed professorships and 
offered bursaries and scholarships to promising students. 



12 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

Such munificence had never been known before in the 
country. His example was followed by other wealthy 
men, whose gifts established the Lyttil College firmly 
and for ever. There was no more talk of closing doors. 
The college grew in numbers, strength, and reputation. 
Soon the old building grew too small for the students 
and a new site had to be sought on an old camping- 
ground freckled with the circles where bell-tents had 
stood. The prophets declared that at last the Lyttil 
College had found an ample and final home. Within 
twenty years it has outgrown its present domicile, and 
has been forced to find another. On the outskirts of 
Dolcefar, a large estate has been bought and a building 
scheme covering fifty years has been mapped out. The 
Lyttil College deserves its name no longer. By a strange 
coincidence the new site was once the property of the 
very graduate of Oxford who, by forcing his obnoxious 
restrictions on the old college, made the Lyttil College 
possible. It still bears the name of his family seat in 
England. Thus does the whirligig of time bring in its 
revenges. 

II 

When the Lyttil College experienced its Renaissance, 
new-fangled notions of education were not in the air. It 
seemed a natural thing that learning should be under 
clerical control ; and no one had thought of questioning 



LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 13 

the value of classics and mathematics as the indispen- 
sable basis of all mental training. Classics and mathe- 
matics were the twin pillars of the Lyttil College's old 
curriculum, and the two scholars from Dublin and from 
Aberdeen who professed those subjects gave the place 
standards, tradition, reputation. If such a statement 
seems too pretentious in the case of an unknown "semi- 
nary for the higher branches of learning," it must be 
remembered that several thousands of Lyttilites have 
sojourned within its walls and regard it with feelings 
that are worth considering, such as affection, respect, 
and admiration. The men who could implant such feel- 
ings in generation after generation of their disciples are 
also worth considering, especially as they were the last 
of their race. Later ages should be told what they were 
like. Neither the Lyttil College nor any other will ever 
see the mate of the old professor of mathematics. 

He was always old. When he died at his post after 
thirty-eight years' continuous service, the students 
buried him from the college and bore his coffin shoulder 
high to the grave. In his honour they produced a special 
number of the college paper, filled with tributes to his 
worth from those who knew and loved him. There were 
also pictures exhumed of him at various ages, and the 
very earliest seemed old. Something was due to the se- 
date clerical garb of his youth, something also to the 
natural gravity and strong North-country features, and 



i 4 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

something to his high conception of the teacher's office. 
At the same time, he was always young; his mind never 
grew old. His genial spirits never suffered decay. Until 
the end, his humour and his somewhat caustic wit 
brightened the dullest meeting of the Senatus Academi- 
cus. Far on in life, he kept up his old athletic habits, 
spending his vacations beside his favourite trout stream, 
although the fish were strangely few and hard to capture 
in the later years. When his step became very heavy 
and slow, he would still, with a smile, maintain himself 
in case to dance the Highland fling. 

He was a man of varied accomplishments; and per- 
haps he did not underestimate his skill in any one of 
them. An assiduous brother of the angle, a scientific 
exponent of long whist, a solver of chess problems, a 
performer on the flute, at his own parties, he professed 
himself capable of giving academic instruction on all 
these branches of learning. Mathematics were, of 
course, his pastime, but he was equally proficient in 
classics. At one time he made a practice of opening the 
first class in the morning with a Latin prayer of his own 
composition; he would turn nonsense verses into Vir- 
gilian hexameters for the amusement of a younger col- 
league; he was ready to converse with a French priest 
whom he met on his travels, or with a like-minded don 
in the tongue of Cicero for hours at a time. When he 
went a-fishing, he was wont to put a Greek play in 



LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 15 

his pocket. Once, when the Professor "of the More 
Humane Letters broke his leg while skating, and was 
housed for weeks, the Professor of Mathematics con- 
ducted his classes in Greek and Latin with great 
applause. When at the last he was suddenly struck 
down in the little house where he lived alone with 
one servant, friends coming in to care for him found 
on the study-table his well-worn Greek Testament, 
open at the fifteenth chapter of the Gospel according 
to St. John. 

Once a priest, always a priest. The old professor 
began his career as a minister of the Kirk of Scotland; 
and in his early days at the Lyttil College he was in 
constant demand as a preacher. Composed slowly, 
with great care, scholarly, fresh, and delivered with a 
studied elocution, his discourses always drew together 
attentive congregations in Dolcefar. As he grew 
older, he became more lax, or more advanced, which- 
ever you please. His last sermon was delivered in 
the Universalist chapel; he designedly omitted grace 
before meals; and he had even been seen of a Sabbath 
morning making casts in a likely pool, — "Just for a 
specimen," as he explained. A farewell discourse in 
the kirk on the text, " Shall he find faith on the earth? " 
caused something of a sensation among the orthodox; 
but its mild heresies would rank their author now-a- 
days in the extreme wing of the conservatives. His 



1 6 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

repute as a public lecturer was equally high. The 
news that he was to speak would always fill a hall. 
On such themes as "A Trip to the Moon," he was 
inimitable. Humorous, droll, sly, pawky, moving 
from point to point somewhat heavily and slowly, he 
really had the secret of combining amusement and 
instruction. He had his own quaint phrases which 
stuck in the memory and raised the laugh. 

On his real strength he did not pride himself nearly 
so much as on his accomplishments. He was a great 
teacher. He shone in the classroom. He had left the 
university with the pleasing conviction that mathe- 
matics was a science in which no further progress 
could be made, and that he had conquered the whole 
domain. Backed by this confidence, he inevitably 
assumed a lordly air towards his subject, which im- 
pressed his students profoundly. But he really knew 
his subject, and he had a genius for teaching. A 
genuine gift for exposition, for making things clear 
was in part the secret of his power. Over and over 
the same rules, the same elementary conceptions, he 
went for nearly forty years, without tiring of them 
himself. There was always a batch of fresh recruits 
to be moulded for the old campaign; and he enjoyed 
to the last giving them their drill and putting them 
through their facings. The Lyttilites liked the disci- 
pline themselves, for the old professor had a way with 



LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 17 

him. His tongue had a razor edge which usage could 
not dull; but never were sarcasms delivered with such 
a beaming, affectionate, paternal, contradictory smile. 
The victim might suspect himself complimented and 
the laughter of his fellows a roar of applause. The 
old professor was by no means impartial; he had his 
favourites and his butts. Some few never forgave his 
persecutions; but the vast majority admired, feared, 
loved him. He was the favourite professor; his was 
the popular class. The first question an old Lyttilite 
put to the newcomer from the college was, "How 's 
Charlie?" Whenever the graduates foregather, end- 
less stories are told of his dicks et gesks. They will 
furnish forth a whole evening's entertainment. His 
pet phrases, his mannerisms, like his cough for em- 
phasis before implanting the sting of an epigram, were 
famous. In short, the old professor was a character, 
the last of the dominies. He taught until within five 
days of his death. 

Ill 

The young (or new) professor was the pupil of the 
old professor. He was made by him, admired him, 
was like him, and was unlike him. Entering college 
at an uncannily early age, he soon shot to the front 
as a lad of parts. Nurtured on the classics and mathe- 
matics, he nevertheless showed his bent for the study 



1 8 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

of nature and his capacity for research which has since 
made him famous. Specialization marked him for her 
own. A scholarship gave him the means to study 
abroad and he learned what the universities of the 
old world, and particularly of Germany, could teach 
him. Then, with his foreign degree, he came back to 
serve the Lyttil College. 

His point of view was at the opposite pole from his 
master's. The special science of which he became a 
devotee was an infinite book of secrecy in which the 
wisest could spell out only a word or two here and 
there. To take all learning for his province, to think 
of the subject he professed as made, and not in the 
process of making, to have time for accomplishments, 
for leisurely vacations, for games, or for reading out- 
side his branch of science seemed to the new profes- 
sor beneath the practice of a reasonable creature. 
He was a handsome, fiery little man, with dark auburn 
hair, eyes of the same colour, and an energetic nose. 
He walked with rapid, disproportionate strides, — a 
sure sign, say close observers, of ambition. He was 
ambitious; he aimed at making contributions to his 
science; but the tools ready to his hand were few and 
poor. The laboratory of the Lyttil College was prac- 
tically a desert. The luxurious shining toys which 
are provided so lavishly for some professors to play 
with were not to be thought of. There was no money 



LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 19 

for such things. So the new professor made his own 
apparatus, with which he investigated and researched 
and studied and made his discoveries, which he com- 
municated to various learned journals in his specialty. 
He laboured terribly, day and night, summer and 
winter, term-time and vacation. For him a holiday 
in the country meant taking his work with him. A 
bathe in the sea, an afternoon's tramp, were the use- 
ful relaxations, refreshing for a renewal of his toil. 
Other interests fell away; he became that essential 
product of modern conditions, — the specialist. 

It would not be fair to call him a narrow specialist. 
He was eager to impart as well as to acquire; he lived 
for his pupils as well as for his science, and so the 
lucky Lyttil College had on its staff two real teachers 
at the same time, representing the old school and the 
new. Though the old professor and the new professor 
remained friends, admiring each other greatly, they 
came into conflict in the meetings of the Senatus. 
The old professor was in favour of prescription, the 
new professor advocated more freedom; other new 
professors rallied to his side, and by degrees the Lyttil 
College was modernized in curriculum and adminis- 
tration. Ready, keen, vehement in debate was the 
new professor, combative as a game-cock, but careful 
always to observe the rules of the game. For all the 
years of his appointment, he supplied the motive 



2o LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

power of the institution. He was fond of the Ly ttil Col- 
lege and lived for it, although his talents called him to 
a wider field of opportunity; and he listened to the call. 
His reputation grew and grew. Out of his empty 
laboratory he produced learned paper after learned 
paper which made him known far beyond the bound- 
aries of his province. He took part in a war of theories 
which agitated the upper air of the scientific Olympus, 
in which he fought not without glory. And he had 
his reward. He was received into that ancient society 
to which all scientific men aspire and had the right to 
place certain three letters after his name. A position 
in a famous university followed; and the Lyttil Col- 
lege lost her most distinguished alumnus for ever. 
At last he had obtained his desire; but he had spent 
the best part of his life in the service of his alma mater, 
and his eyes were moist the day he said good-bye to 
the college and his colleagues. Beyond the sea he is 
the same tireless worker that he was in the days of 
his provincial obscurity; and he has left his mark 
upon the ancient and famous university, which reck- 
ons so many great names in the long roll of its pro- 
fessoriate. 

IV 

One great advantage of a little college is that the 
teacher may come to know his pupils. They, in turn, 



LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 21 

profess to believe that this personal contact is a ben- 
efit to them, and this pleasing theory makes it hard 
for the teacher to retain his needful humility. There 
can be no manner of doubt that the teacher and his 
teaching profit thereby. When the college grows in 
population, this desirable intercourse comes to an end, 
inevitably; mere arithmetic intervenes; that there 
are only twenty-four hours in the day renders this 
possibility of mutual acquaintanceship a dream. To 
the professor with large classes, his students are 
simply a mosaic of young faces in the lecture-room, 
an alphabetical list of names against which to set 
marks for examination or returns of attendance. He 
loses touch; his influence and his power as a teacher 
are bound to suffer. The equation remains one-sided. 
He may not know his students, but his students know 
him. He need not flatter himself that there is any- 
thing unknown about him. Every day is a day of 
judgment. Every day he is subjected to the pitiless 
scrutiny of a hundred or more very clear young eyes 
which serve active brains, intent on plucking the 
heart out of his mystery. Not a slip, not a foible, not 
a weakness, not a mannerism passes without remark, 
comment, analysis. Their judgments do not err on 
the side of lenity; they see only one side of the man, 
and perchance there are possibilities in the direst 
pedagogue which function outside the classroom, and 



n LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

which, if known, might soften the harsh justice of 
impetuous and uncharitable youth. 

Sheer numbers prevent the professor in a large in- 
stitution from knowing his pupils. In the little col- 
lege, he deals not with educational units, but with 
individual young human beings each with a history 
of his own. In this he has a great advantage over the 
other learned professions, which deal chiefly with 
grown people and set characters. The clergyman 
sees human nature at its best, the lawyer at its worst, 
and the doctor, in pain, sickness, and decay. But the 
teacher is dealing with humanity in its age of hope, 
"when everything seems possible, because every- 
thing is untried." His] work lies full in the agitated 
mid-current of young life. He must be, indeed, stolid 
and self-centred, who can remain unaffected by its 
generous motions. Age may vaunt its sad superiority 
of wisdom; but youth is the age of idealism, of aspi- 
ration, of virtue. The true teacher should never grow 
old, for he lives, as does no other, with the young. 
In his heart there should be an eternal May. 

Because Ultima Thule has diverse elements in its 
population, and because for generations provincials 
have followed the sea, a professor of the Lyttil Col- 
lege, in meeting his freshman class for the first time, 
confronts a mass of collective experience Ulyssean 
in its quality and range. This boy was born in his 



LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 23 

father's ship off Bombay; the earliest recollection of 
this quiet girl is being taken ashore during a "norther" 
at Valparaiso. This young man has seen knives drawn 
and men drop on a pier-head at Rio. Even if they 
themselves have not sailed the Spanish Main or gone 
down by the Horn, their fathers, brothers, or other 
blood-kin have been seafarers and have come home 
from deep-sea voyages with tales of strange lands on 
their lips. These youths gathered here for the sake 
of book-learning have all their undervalued lore of 
life. They have sailed boats single-handed on lonely 
seas; they have hunted the bear and moose; they 
have known the perils of the forest, the ocean, the 
mine. They have endured the varied and exacting 
labour of the husbandman throughout the changing 
year. They have been brought face to face with 
reality. Not a few have already taken degrees in the 
rugged school of privation, and are at college solely 
through their own powers of self-denial and self-help. 
Very often, as in the fairy-tales, it is the youngest 
son who is given his chance by the hard-working elder 
brothers and sisters who stay at home on the farm 
and join forces to support the lad of parts. Descend- 
ants of French peasants and of out-wanderers from 
the pleasant Rhine country are to be found in the 
Lyttil College, still manifesting the characteristics of 
their forebears ; but its chief strength is recruited from 



24 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

three districts settled by clansmen from the Highland 
hills. Respect for the minister and the dominie, for 
learning and education, runs in their blood. In such 
conditions, the teacher's problem is simplicity itself. 
He does not have to coax and coddle and dry-nurse a 
set of pulpy, or indifferent, or blase youngsters into 
meeting a minimum of college requirements for a 
degree. His pupils are already men in will, determined 
to know and eager to learn. The teacher's only task 
is to be sure of himself and to feed his disciples with 
solid food. To such pupils the teacher owes the hom- 
age of respect; he may count himself fortunate if he 
obtains theirs in return. 

Though there is a decorative fringe of young women, 
and though many of them become good students and 
all work with conscience, the Lyttil College is essen- 
tially a man's college. Men do things. Every autumn, 
the professor confronts a fresh array of strange young 
faces. In the formative quadrenniad that follows, he 
comes to know something of the character and his- 
tory each face and name represent. Then they pass, 
in the curious phrase, out into the world. The next 
thing their old teacher knows they are wagging their 
heads at him in the pulpit and telling him all his sins, 
or they are winning higher degrees in foreign univer- 
sities, or acquiring fortunes with bewildering rapidity, 
or making books of learning and repute, or conferring 



LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 25 

with him as undoubted equals in points of scholarship, 
or leading political parties, haranguing constituents 
and making laws in various little senates, or mould- 
ing public opinion through the press and dealing with 
matters of life and death. In short, they are doing 
men's work in the world, and their whilom preceptor 
finds it hard to readjust the focus of his spectacles, 
through which he views them and their achievements. 
Yesterday they were boys, in statu pupillari, and 
boys they remain, let him do his best, in the profes- 
sor's eyes, to the end of the chapter. A few years of 
such experience will lead the most superior and light- 
minded young professor to see a sound reason for the 
practice of Comenius; and he will uncover mentally 
whenever he enters into the presence of his freshmen. 
He will become impressed with the magnitude and 
the solemnity of his task; he may even realize that 
his office is essentially a religious one, and, remember- 
ing the custom of the old professor, he will feel like 
beginning each lecture by signing himself, in nomine 
Domini. 

The Lyttil College is no impossible Eden fenced 
off by adamantine walls against the assault of evil. 
Tragedy forces its way in. Death, disgrace, sin, 
crime, insanity, moral degradation occur from time 
to time, to remind us we are in this present world, to 
sadden and to overawe. Dark shadows are inevitable. 



26 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

In hundreds of youths assembled year after year at 
one educational centre by some mysterious law of 
natural selection, there shall not fail to be included a 
few of the baser sort; but these are the rare exceptions. 
Nowhere is the moral atmosphere purer than in a 
college. When we think of the slipshod ethics of mid- 
dle life, its love of ease and compromise, its cowardice, 
its evasions, and of the impotence of old age for good 
or evil, we must conclude that virtue is with youth. 
Lyttilites have their faults, but they present a high 
average of character. A college develops the brotherly 
spirit of the regiment and the ship; and these colle- 
gians are good to one another. They care for their 
sick in hospital; there are cases of a scholarship re- 
signed in favour of a less fortunate classmate. Some 
attain the moral height called heroism. There was 
one honest-faced, quiet boy who dived three times 
for the fellow bather who had sunk at his side. Three 
times he dived in determined effort, and the third 
time he did not come to the surface. " Greater love 
hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life 
for his friend." There was another lad of fair hopes 
and great promise. He was mortally hurt in a game, 
and his first word after the accident was to clear his 
opponents of blame. Of such deeds are the Lyttilites 
capable. 
The usual prizes of life — wealth, fame, place — 



LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 27 

do not come the teacher's way. He is vowed to aca- 
demic poverty, which he embraces gladly for the sake 
of the compensatory freedoms. He knows that he 
is scorned by the man of the world and the man of 
affairs as an unpractical recluse; but he is also aware 
that not infrequently a measure of envy mingles in 
their scorn. Learned leisure, the friendship of books, 
the golden mediocrity of fortune, are often regarded 
wistfully by those who are quite unfitted to enjoy 
them. And though the college pedagogue is conscious 
of being pursued through life by the half-contemp- 
tuous, half -envious pity of the successful, and though 
he may be tempted at times to wish for more of this 
world's goods as a member of a society in which money 
is the measure of all things, his regrets are never long- 
lived. He has his compensations. Of these, the chief 
is merely that he should not be forgotten by those he 
has taught. A visit on the eve of departure for a for- 
eign shore, or on return from travel, a book to his 
taste, a Christmas greeting, some little token from 
the other side of the world after years have flown, civil 
wedding cards, announcements of birth, rare letters 
which are never destroyed, a word of thanks or grat- 
itude for what he has tried to do, — these insignifi- 
cant, elusive things make up the teacher's hidden 
riches and render him more than content with his little 
house, his modest table, and his shabby, book-lined 



28 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

study. A wise man' has declared, "We live by admi- 
ration, hope, and love." 



All the activities of the Lyttil College are pent up 
within four walls and under one roof. There is no 
residence or (suggestive word) dormitory. The stu- 
dents lodge where they please throughout the town, 
Scottish fashion; and the one building is used solely 
for the purposes of instruction. It contains two little 
libraries, five little laboratories, besides little class- 
rooms, offices, and other accommodations, — a mar- 
vel of concentration. No charm of architecture in- 
vests it. The Lyttil College looks as utilitarian as a 
red-brick factory, as ugly and gaunt as poverty joined 
with ignorance could make it. And yet these incred- 
ible Lyttilites idealize the monstrous fabric and grow 
lyrical in honour of its one passable feature, the "old 
red tower," the antiquity of said tower being some 
score of years. Some avoid revisiting the place after 
graduation because it awakens a curious homesick- 
ness. Others make a point of coming back with 
wife and child, as on a pilgrimage. The most re- 
mote send affectionate inquiries about the dear 
ugly place from the ends of the earth, for they see 
it still through the rose-coloured mists of youth and 
enthusiasm. 



LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 29 

The session is old-fashioned and well-nigh unique. 
It lasts for eight months, with very few breaks, and 
then comes a long vacation of a full third of the year. 
That is the division of time. The session is a period 
of intense activity followed by a period of intense re- 
pose. If the college looks like a factory outside, it is 
a beehive within, humming with intellectual activity. 
The sacred hours are from ten to one in the morning. 
The visitor who traverses the corridors then hears the 
voices of various lecturers beating through the general 
stillness, with now and then a burst of applause or 
Kentish fire, for one of the Lyttilites' most cherished 
privileges is the right to cheer their professors, iron- 
ically or with good will. The custom has its uses: it 
corresponds to the custom of having markers at the 
targets to show what shots get home; and it is not 
abused. At five minutes to the hour a bell rings, and 
the staircases and corridors are suddenly filled with 
the tramp of feet and the noise of many voices com- 
ing, going, intermingling in their passage from class- 
room to classroom. The self -determining tides of 
young humanity find their different goals; the tumult 
ceases, silence reigns once more, broken only by the 
booming of the lecturer's voice. There are always 
readers in the one large room on the ground floor with 
windows looking to the south, and labourers in the 
laboratories. The college motto is "Or a et labor a"; 



3 o LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

and there is a determined effort to carry into effect 
the second command, at least. Inspection would 
hardly find a single room in the building without its 
corps of workers from morn till eve. The Lyttil Col- 
lege is a working college. The casual drones are soon 
detected and put out of the hive. 

And yet it would be a mistake to think of the Lyt- 
tilites as a set of spectacled young mandarins. They 
are hearty youths who know how to play as well as 
work; and not seldom are the best scholars the fore- 
most athletes. Their one game is an old-fashioned 
variety of football; and they are famed for their prow- 
ess in it. An ancient town-and-gown rivalry with a 
local club gives the keenest edge to competition. The 
annual contests in October are Homeric. During 
that month both town and college go mad over the 
game. A series of struggles for a costly hideous silver 
"trophy" has continued for years, with trumpets of 
victory, groans of defeat. On match days the grassy 
arena of the athletic ground is lined thick with ex- 
cited, vociferous partisans, to cheer the gladiators on. 
In all the throng there is no keener onlooker than tht 
reverend head of the Lyttil College himself; he has 
never been known to miss a match, rain or shine. 
Most of the staff attend also, or if not, they are busy 
at golf, or quoits, or boating. In the winter they pur- 
sue the antique Scottish sport of curling. No one can 



LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 31 

accuse the Lyttil College of neglecting the body in its 
cultivation of the mind. 

Vacation comes with the cold rains of the bleak 
Norland spring. The fever of the annual, mechanical 
testing called examination has spent itself; the last 
diploma has been signed in the dusty, littered library, 
the last excited conference of the Senatus has been 
held, and the hurry-flurry of Commencement Day is 
over for a year, to the unspeakable relief of the head 
and all the staff. For Commencement Day is some- 
what saturnalian in character, and the demure Lyt- 
tillites reward themselves for eight months' decorum 
by what might appear to the uninitiated outsider as 
a dangerous riot. Songs, cheers, chaff, shouts, jokes, 
personalities from the students' gallery enliven the 
orderly "proceedings," and the professors are baited 
freely, to the huge delight of all but the victims. Then 
the Lyttilites disperse to the four winds of heaven. 
Very few are able to spend the vacation in idleness. 
The majority must employ their leisure in finding 
money for the next session's expenses. They have 
various ways of making money, which they do not 
care to discuss, never considering, perhaps, that the 
experience so gained may prove as valuable as the 
book-learning acquired in the classroom. They carry 
on the fine old tradition which unites learning with 
narrow means. 



32 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

In vacation, the Lyttil College is empty and lonely, 
like a rock on the sand when the tide has ebbed far 
away. "All the bloomy flush of life is fled." Silence 
reigns in the dusty classrooms and the long corridors. 
Only now and then a solitary professor lets himself 
into the library with his private key to borrow a 
book; but he does not stay long. His footsteps echo 
strangely loud in the vacant halls. Outside, the vine 
in the reentrant of the central tower, which looks in 
the winter like a map of the Amazon and its tribu- 
taries, resumes its leisurely green escalade of our walls. 
Up it has crept storey by storey, and in time its tri- 
umphant banners will flutter above our battlements. 
In midsummer, it forms a wavering green arras, which 
ruffles and sways in the wind. In autumn, the leaves 
turn all hues of crimson and copper, most glorious to 
see. Now, the single retainer of the establishment, a 
veteran of the Great Mutiny, emerges from his winter 
burrow in the furnace-room for the annual house- 
cleaning. He is an absolute factotum, being stoker, 
parlor-maid, carpenter, mason, gardener all in one. 
He and his wife, an old campaigner, have their "quar- 
ters," as he calls them, in a corner of the basement. 
A reminiscence of barrack life is the plain plank bed 
without mattress or blanket, on which he stretches 
himself between watches. Indoors, he sweeps and 
dusts and paints and creates a strong atmosphere of 



LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 33 

common soap. Then he sallies forth with rake and 
hoe to put the walks in order. The grass grows high 
and is never cut or mowed; but a curly-headed old 
Kerry man grazes his seven fine cows roundabout, 
which adds a pastoral touch to the academic scene. 
An occasional tourist invades the vacation stillness, or 
an old graduate revisits alma mater, with his little boys 
in his hand. Happy is he if he encounters one of his 
old professors in the building and can chat about col- 
lege affairs. And so season follows season, the years 
slip away, and the little college which is not a build- 
ing, or a staff of teachers, or a body of students, or 
all combined, but a spiritual ideal, strikes its roots 
deeper into all hearts concerned with it. 

VI 

If it savours of impertinence to assert that the Lyt- 
til College has a history, it must seem the empty vaunt 
of a fanatical admirer to rank it as a world power. 
But this is the sober truth. The Lyttil College does 
verily reach out its hands to the ends of the earth 
and sway men and events. Consider the fact that it 
has trained several hundred ministers of the Christian 
religion, who have now for many years been preach- 
ing to congregations of faithful men all the world over. 
Some have become missionaries to the heathen, and 



34 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

carry the Lyttil College in their hearts to India, 
China, and the islands of the sea. Almost as great is 
the number of secular teachers, who have devoted 
themselves to the task of instructing the youth of 
the province, and to a less extent, of the Dominion. 
Not a few have reached the rank of professors in full- 
blooded universities and have attained modest emi- 
nence in the scholastic world. They are all proud to 
attribute their success to the training they received 
within the walls of the Lyttil College. But for it, 
they must have remained unenlightened to the end 
of their days. Besides, not a few of our lawmakers, 
judges, and public men who form opinion by means 
of the press were made what they are by the Lyttil 
College. The aggregate of such influence wielded by 
so many Lyttilites in so many directions must be in- 
calculable. Then, as befits a college founded by a 
soldier with money taken from the enemy, it has a 
war record. In '85, Lyttilites went to the front at 
the call of the country and endured the hardships of 
campaigning, without the rewards and glories of actual 
fighting. Again, in '99, when the Mother Country 
called on her children for aid, five Lyttilites were 
found in the first force of fighting men sent by the 
Dominion to the seat of war. One company was 
commanded by a Lyttilite, and it so fell out that when 
the regiment made a desperate night attack, and the 



LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 3 $ 

order was given to "retire," a Lyttilite corporal ques- 
tioned the word as it came to him in the thick dark- 
ness amid the devil's racket of the fusillade, and did 
not pass it on. Consequently the one company with 
the quiet Lyttilite captain held its ground desper- 
ately within sixty paces of the enemy's trenches, till 
day broke and the white flag was hoisted over the 
huge river camp. After the war, the Lyttilites brought 
back two large vierkleurs to the college. The trophies 
hang in the library above the portrait of the founder. 
After the war, four Lyttilite girls were chosen to go 
out and teach the children of the conquered. So it is 
plain that the Lyttil College has meddled with affairs 
of the first magnitude, not without glory. The Lyttil 
College is a world power. Every little college is a 
world power. 

But the Lyttil College is a thing of the past. It 
has outgrown its second home and entered upon a 
much greater inheritance. Ample grounds await the 
next development. Generous friends have over- 
whelmed the Lyttil College with their gifts. Splendid 
plans are being made and executed for stately build- 
ings, suitable equipment, sufficient endowment. Cin- 
derella has blossomed into the princess of a fairy-tale. 
But one thing is certain, she cannot be more beloved 
in her prosperity than when she was unknown and 
poor. 



LITTLE COLLEGE GIRLS 



LITTLE COLLEGE GIRLS 

ALTHOUGH our college is a small one and little 
famous, it is still the chiefest in the well-known 
province of Ultima Thule. It was founded early in 
the last century; and though our numbers be few 
and our housing unlovely, there are those that be- 
lieve in our little college, admire it, loVe it. Some 
twenty years ago, certain ambitious girls signified 
their desire to attend it. The staff, the governors 
made no objection; the girls came; one married within 
the year, the other crowned a full course with a good 
degree; other girls have been coming ever since. I 
have been young and am now old. I have had some 
hundreds of the college girl, as bred in these parts, 
under observation, and I have arrived at definite 
conclusions regarding her. 

The popular imagination is a romantic thing. It 
transformed the meddlesome old woman in Southey's 
tale of the three bears into the picturesque and mis- 
chievous Goldilocks. And it has created an impossi- 
ble ethereal being, all good looks and good clothes, 
who subsists on caramels, and floats gracefully 
through her courses until she becomes one in a bevy 

39 



4 o LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

of "sweet girl graduates with their golden hair." 
This is labelled "the college girl," and is exactly the 
kind of doll that great baby, the public, loves to play 
with. 

The reality is very different. The Canadian col- 
lege girl, as I know her, is an earnest young person, 
who is not carried to the skies of academic distinc- 
tions on flowery beds of ease. She knows the mean- 
ing and the value of hard work, with small leisure for 
frivolity of any kind. She may be an infant of six- 
teen, fresh from school, with her frock at her ankle 
and her hair in a "club," or she may be a mature 
woman, who may well have prepared her classmate 
for matriculation, or a city girl of means, with time 
on her hands, who takes a class or two because she 
wants to improve herself; but they all alike learn to 
work, and shun to be idle. More of our girls have 
taken honours in mathematics than in any other de- 
partments; but this may be due to the climate; the 
popular opinion is that the kind of head that grows in 
Ultima Thule is particularly hard and strong. 

Outwardly the life of the college girl is rather 
neutral- tinted. She comes from the country and 
finds a boarding-house for herself, where she exists 
in more or less discomfort. Her work is attending 
lectures; her diversions are church and the meetings 
of the two college societies for girls, a rare party, or 



LITTLE COLLEGE GIRLS 41 

a college "at home." She gives her days to lectures, 
does not dream of cutting even the dullest, and her 
nights to study. Outwardly, it is not an attractive 
life; but every now and then comes a hint of how 
those who live it look upon it, — a letter from the 
ends of the earth, a rarity for the museum, some 
books for the library, a picture for a classroom, a 
visit of an old student to his former haunts. The 
secret is that youth is the season of romance, and 
that within our homely walls the inner life of the 
intellect is kindled or fanned to brighter flame, that 
tinges all about it with the colour of the rose. The 
young people get here something that they value, 
call it awakening, education, point of view, mental 
attitude, or what you will. 

We have no "problem" in our little college. The 
young women sit at lectures with the young men; 
they read in the library and work in the laboratory 
together. They wear streamers of the college colours 
at the football matches, encouraging the gladiators 
by their presence at the celebration of their victory 
as well as at the actual contest. But they are neither 
rivals with the youths, nor, to the acute observer, 
unduly friendly. The young men will open the door 
of a classroom for them and allow them to go out 
first; but there is no open flirtation. There was once 
a girl who came to the college for fun, and who had 



42 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

usually two or three youths about her, engaged in 
sparkling conversation. Her fate was strikingly ap- 
propriate; she married a minister. I have seen her 
since her marriage and her spirits have not abated. 
It must, however, be admitted that our college is, 
somehow or other, a matrimonial bureau, — a school 
for husbands and wives. Our graduates show a very 
amiable propensity to marry within the family, so to 
say. In spite of lectures, examinations, and all the 
stress of intellectual effort, the old puzzle regarding 
the way of a man with a maid persists here as else- 
where. 

The god of love, a! benedicite, 

How mighty and how great a lord is he! 

There must be a good deal of question and answer; 
the lasses must get their dues of courting, but pub- 
lic opinion decrees that it must not be done on the 
premises. A few lines in the newspaper, or occasional 
wedding cards, or the gossip of an old student, tell 
the faculty all they ever know of these affairs. The 
freaks of mating are as curious here as elsewhere; 
as when a stalwart football player chooses a quiet 
little slip of a girl, who looks as if a breath of 
wind would blow her away, and carries her off to 
Christianize the heathen at the other side of the 
world. 

In other words, the relations between the young 



LITTLE COLLEGE GIRLS 43 

men and maidens are right and pleasant, as our girls 
find when they compare notes with their friends in 
other colleges. They discover that they have been 
treated with a courtesy and consideration not in- 
variably accorded to girls at college. Part of the 
credit is due to the young men; but most to the young 
women themselves. They come from Puritan homes, 
where religion is a reality. They are good girls. As 
I sit alone in the long afternoons, in my eyrie that 
overlooks the sea, there comes at twilight, down the 
deserted corridor, the sound of girlish voices up- 
raised in a hymn; and, in the silence that follows, I 
know that they are praying. This exercise is not 
prescribed in the curriculum, but it forms no small 
part of their education, and, I imagine, of others. 
The college girls take their share of church work, 
sometimes to the detriment of their studies and stand- 
ing, or they find time in the midst of heavy honour 
courses for works of mercy among the needy at their 
own door. 

Let no one infer from the last remark but two 
or three that our girls lack their share of comeliness, 
of the essential charm of girlhood. Our classrooms 
have here and there a picture, though our decoration 
is meagre; but the best are the living pictures. 
"Praised be Allah," says the devout Arab, "who 
made beautiful women!" and even in Ultima Thule 



44 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

he would often have such cause for thankfulness. 
The poor youths! they are so placed in the classroom 
that they can study only the rear view of various 
coiffures; but the lucky professor, by virtue of his 
office, may and must look his audience in the face, 
and if he dwells on the most attractive part of it, 
who shall blame him? The prevailing impression 
left on his mind is pinkish, for our Norland air is 
tempered by the sea, and sets a lasting rouge upon 
the cheek that has known it from childhood. Else- 
where on this continent the colour in the young 
girl's face is apt to be too faint. Tusitala would 
have liked our Ultima Thulians, for here the young 
maidens have " quiet eyes." As I think of them, a 
long procession of fresh faces passes before me; 

I dream of a red-rose tree. 

Jessica's face comes first, — a baby face, except 
for its earnest look, full, round, dimpled, in colour 
like a ripened peach. Jessica's eyes are blue, the 
blue of an April sky after rain, and her hair is wavy 
and fair. She looked soberly in class; but once she 
smiled when she thanked me for something she had 
learned, she said, from me. Jessica is a woman now, 
winning her bread by her own toil. I met her the 
other day, on my long walk, with a young man. 
They both had a happy, confidential air that pro- 



LITTLE COLLEGE GIRLS 45 

claimed their relation as well as a placard. I think 
her days of independence are near an end. 

Norah was true to her Celtic name and Celtic 
blood. Generously made, impulsive, hearty, ready 
with her tongue, her wit, her laugh, Norah in the 
classroom made stagnation impossible. She had a 
trick of blushing when she laughed, and her colour 
changed quickly. When she graduated, she was un- 
decided between going on the stage and going into 
a convent; and she took the veil. I have seen her 
since. They have cut off her beautiful hair, and she 
wears the black habit and white coif of her order. 
Norah is her name no longer. I must call her Sister 
Theresita. But these changes do not go very deep. 
Sister Theresita is my old, hearty, impulsive Norah, 
perfectly happy in her new sequestered life, a power 
in the convent school, and still warmly interested in 
her old college. 

All the Bellair sisters were pretty. They were all 
well made, and with a peculiarly graceful carriage. 
They came in a long succession, and though not 
famous as students, were most decorative in the 
class-room. Kate, the eldest, was a court lady in 
our Shakespearean revival, and she looked the part. 
Their cousin, Bonnibel, was girlishly slim, with 
brown eyes and ruddy brown hair. No more than a 
child when she entered college, she soon proved a 



46 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

good student, patient, systematic, steady as the clock. 
Without overworking, but by simple faithfulness, 
she won her high honours, and she deserved them. 
Not yet content, she is working for a higher degree; 
but I am glad to notice that she is no longer as thin 
as she was. Her friend and classmate was called 
"the Little Duchess" by the Old Professor, from the 
way she queened it over the whole college. Every 
one liked her, and every one made demands upon 
her; and that was the trouble. There was too much 
for her to do in the twenty-four hours of each day, 
and, for a time, she was forced to retire from the 
field. Her disappointment was extreme, but she 
waited, and the laurels were ready for her when she 
came back. Like the other Maud, her little head 
ran over with curls. 

But my procession is growing too long; still I must 
not forget Anita, who has Spanish eyes that dance 
when she dances. She is in part exotic, a flower of 
the tropics, strayed in our stern Northland. Phcebe 
was a staid country lass, of the wholesome English 
type, with smooth black hair, bright red cheeks, and 
brown eyes that looked black under sleek black 
brows and long black eyelashes. We had to break 
the news to Phcebe that she had won, by quiet, hard 
work, as great an honour as our little world has to 
offer. It was a complete surprise. Phcebe laughed 



LITTLE COLLEGE GIRLS 47 

and blushed, and gasped "I?" in thorough incredu- 
lity. I have seen many a rosy dawn and sunset, but 
never any play of colour as fine as the come and go 
of the good red blood in Phoebe's face that day. 

Neither our lads nor our lasses are weaklings. Half 
the college play football, and our champion team is 
a joy to behold. Di Vernon is as straight as a lance- 
shaft, and has swum across the bay and back. A 
six-mile tramp over country roads is no great feat 
for any of them. Many are daughters of sea-captains, 
and have seen, as children, those strange places all 
round the world, that are for most of us mere names 
in story-books. With this breeding, on or by the 
sea, they have gained character early. Janet spent 
her childhood in a lighthouse on a lonely island; her 
father has saved many a life; Flora remembers a 
"norther" on her father's ship in Valparaiso Harbor; 
Hannah's earliest recollection is of a strange man, 
who could speak no English, knocking at the door 
one stormy night, all faint and dripping from a 
recent wreck. 

But they are not all strong. Alicia, my best 
scholar, was in my classes two years before I was 
able to identify her. She was a quiet, slight little 
woman, very shy and low-spoken. Her voice was 
never heard in class, which was a pity, for it was 
caressing, clear, and exquisitely modulated. Nearly 



48 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

two years passed before I could connect the perfect 
papers bearing Alicia's name with the most silent, 
most attentive student in the room. When I did, 
our friendship began. There is much virtue in work, 
in mastering the knowledge that is worth knowing, 
in learning how to wield and handle it, in making it 
subserve noble ends. This was the stamp of Alicia's 
work; it was full of this virtue; but the chief charm 
was the character that showed itself unconsciously 
in all that work. Strength to endure, an unvary- 
ing sweet patience, the scholar's modest ambition 
and enthusiasm, a richness of gentle affection that 
radiates warmth on all about her, — these are Alicia. 
We are old friends now, but the years, as they pass, 
only give me better reasons for thinking well of her. 
Sorrow has come to her in many forms, one of the 
sorest being a long severance from her beloved books; 
but the fire has only made the gold finer. Mine is 
the opinion of all who know her. Her life is not one 
that most would choose; but it is neither without 
fruit nor without cheer. If only the jewel had not 
so frail a casket! 

Honour was the best listener I ever had. Every 
speaker knows what I mean. The greater part of 
every class attends, and attends well; but once in a 
while you entertain an angel, in the shape of a hearer, 
who is specially interested, who never takes his 



LITTLE COLLEGE GIRLS 49 

eye off you, who never misses a point, who is com- 
pletely sympathetic. Such a hearer was Honour. 
Her face was a telltale mirror of what was passing 
in her mind; every thought, every emotion made 
some change there. Her eyes were the fresh, well- 
opened eyes of a child, free from concealment, from 
self-consciousness, from any shade of unreality or 
affectation. Frank, proud, sensitive, alert, open as 
the day, Honour was also fair to see, a tall, straight 
girl who looked her best in her habit and on horse- 
back; eyes, a Scottish grey-blue; a mouth like Brown- 
ing's Edith, the lips parting naturally and showing 
a little bit of two white strong teeth. And a pretty 
wit had Honour, a way of putting things all her 
own. Once we played a comedy of Shakespeare's, 
and Honour was our star. Shall we ever forget her 
brightness, patience, docility, unfailing good humour? 
Honour made the play, and left her friends a legacy 
of pleasant memories. Now she is happily married, 
and has gone to live in a far country. She writes that 
forget-me-nots grow thick in the Jhelum meadows; 
they grow also along ^he brooks of Ultima Thule. 

Constance came up to college with strong health, 
excellent preparation, and a merry face. A way of 
turning her head on one side, like a bird, and a twist 
of her lips into a quizzical smile are what I remember 
her by. Students fix themselves upon the teacher's 



50 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

memory by trick of personality, displaying itself in 
word, or gesture, or question. Some phrase, or atti- 
tude, or incident establishes the identification for 
ever. Many come and go like phantoms, impressing 
themselves in no way on the college memory; but 
Constance worked faithfully and cheerfully, earn- 
ing the respect of the staff, moving in a brightness 
of her own making, and leaving behind her the after- 
glow of a rich and sunny nature. When she passed 
out of our halls for the last time, she little knew what 
was before her. Mercifully she did not. Constance 
was fated to be one of an English garrison besieged 
in a foreign city by the cruel yellow people. The 
first thing to do, after the investment began, was to 
write to the far-off friends and put the letters in the 
safe, so that they would know, in case the promised 
relief came too late. Other wise precautions were 
taken. At the ringing of a bell, all the women and 
children were to assemble in one place, if the foe 
broke in. But they were not to be allowed to fall 
into the hands of the torturers alive. These were 
among the possibilities our little college girl had to 
face through weeks of agony. Quenching fire under 
a sleet of bullets, and the pitiful mother's tragedy, 
when the long strain was over, — these things she 
has known, but neither she nor her friends will speak 
of them willingly as long as they live. 



LITTLE COLLEGE GIRLS 51 

The college girl will play a part of increasing im- 
portance in the community; but as yet the commu- 
nity has done very little for the college girl, in Can- 
ada at least. Coeducation is a temporary makeshift, 
due to the national poverty. The time is coming 
when our women will have their education apart, 
when it will be shaped to their needs, capacities, 
tastes, and destiny. There is already such a college, 
where the students have grown from less than a 
score to over a thousand in its short lifetime of 
twenty-five years. It is in a beautiful country town, 
in a broad valley between ranges of serrated hills. 
The college is the result of a large plan intelligently 
carried out. The girls are not allowed to drift into 
casual boarding-houses, nor are they herded in huge 
dormitories. They live in little homes, ten or twenty 
together, under the care of one of the staff. There 
is a homelike air about the place that strikes the 
stranger at once. An ample gymnasium, a picture 
gallery, a library, a chapel where I saw the whole 
college at their orisons, classrooms, laboratories, 
hammocks under the apple trees about the tennis- 
courts, are among the more obvious provisions for 
the education of the lucky girls who can attend 
this college. 

Our Canadian girls deserve as good treatment. 



THE VANITY OF TRAVEL 



THE VANITY OF TRAVEL 



IN academic circles it is tacitly assumed that travel 
is an essential of education, or experience, or cul- 
ture. On the aspirant for scholastic fame is laid the 
heavy necessity of having at least seen Germany. His 
ability to cap allusions to the Alps with modern in- 
stances from the Apennines and the river Po is taken 
for granted and reckoned as a necessary part of his 
learned luggage. The admission that he has not trav- 
elled is made with shame and confusion of face, or, if 
resolutely brazened out, with a secret sinking of the 
heart; and such admission is received with a lifting 
of the eyebrows, the rising inflection on "Indeed!" 
and, henceforward, a certain condescension on the 
part of the interlocutor. As Johnson said, "The man 
who has not been in Italy is always conscious of an 
inferiority, from his not having seen what a man is 
expected to see." Outside the schools and colleges, 
the same opinion prevails. In a cis-Atlantic com- 
munity, one symptom of new-gotten wealth is the 
sudden flitting to Europe of Dives' womankind. 

55 



$6 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

And yet, after his happy return from the grand tour, 
not only long desired and long prepared for, but en- 
joyed to the full under well-nigh ideal conditions, the 
thoughtful soul retires to his own roof-tree once more 
and ponders his gains. What has he in exchange for 
his outlay in time and money? What has been the 
reaction of his new experience upon the whole man? 
Has he added even the fraction of a cubit to his mental 
stature? Has he acquired that mysterious quality of 
"breadth," which travel is supposed to confer? Or 
can it be possible that the benefits accruing from travel 
have been overrated? May not this faith in the virtue 
of the modern pilgrimage be simply a newer kind of 
fetish-worship? 

The value of travel as a means of culture must be 
overrated, because it is a matter of common remark 
that a man may traverse the five continents and come 
home as dull an ass, as complete a philistine, as rude 
an oaf, as when he started. On the other hand, home- 
bred folk who have hardly strayed from their birth- 
place may be thoughtful, well-read, humane, sympa- 
thetic, agreeable, charming. If broad sympathies, 
wide interests, fine character, gentle manners were im- 
possible of attainment without wanderings in foreign 
parts, the world would be poor, indeed. An authentic 
case of conversion were greatly to be desired. If rec- 
ords existed to show narrow-minded persons becoming 



THE VANITY OF TRAVEL 57 

broad-minded after travel, or churlish persons, cour- 
teous, or stupid persons, intelligent, the sceptic would 
be silenced. Observe your rich neighbours who en- 
joyed last summer for the first time the advantages 
of a trip to England. Listen to their instructive 
conversation. Do you notice any decided improve- 
ment in their mind, manners, or morals? Have they 
brought back with them much more than data re- 
garding the weather and the hotel rates? In your 
pilgrimage through the world you will indeed be for- 
tunate if you meet with a man of wider intellectual 
cultivation than Charles Lamb, the cockney in grain, 
who never travelled farther from his beloved London 
than to Margate, or to Mackery End in Hertfordshire. 
Samuel Johnson could spend weeks in France, could 
see portents like beautiful, doomed Marie Antoinette 
going hunting in the park at Versailles, and could dis- 
cover nothing more important than that the French 
were an indelicate people because one footman used 
his fingers instead of the sugar-tongs. 

Travel cannot be essential to culture. It would be 
like making a knowledge of the Scriptures in the orig- 
inal tongues essential to the Christian life. In spite 
of Cook and modern cheapness, travel is even now a 
luxury reserved for the few. Not every one may fare 
to Corinth. Only since the perfecting of steam trans- 
portation by land and sea has travel been possible 



5 8 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

except for the very rich, or the very hardy. But 
strong men lived before Agamemnon, and true cul- 
ture existed in many a century before the nineteenth. 
Duty, force of circumstances, want of pence may close 
foreign ports to you all your life long. Death may 
overtake you before you see St. Paul's cross shine over 
city and river, or the sun set beyond Janiculum, or the 
moon rise over Hymettus. But the world of books 
is never barred; the abysses of the starry sky and 
of your own mind always await your exploration, 
wherever your home may be. Life by itself is a stren- 
uous cultivator of the soul, ploughing deep and har- 
rowing and stirring to its very depths and watering 
with plentiful tears. What Carlyle called "the usual 
destinies" — our slow learning of so little, bread- 
winning, mating, birth of children, loss and gain, suc- 
cess and failure — these things which make the com- 
mon lot, if rightly understood and wisely accepted, 
are culture of the best. If one were given the choice 
between early marriage and a year in Europe! And 
yet your prudent academic person will choose to know 
rather than to live, and defers matrimony until his 
Entwickelung has been sufficiently advanced by va- 
cations and "sabbaticals" abroad. Then, in canny 
middle age, he looks about for the lass with the tocher. 
Though such commonplace considerations must 
occur to every reflective mind, the tide of travel is 



THE VANITY OF TRAVEL 59 

ever rising. In the summer season the ferry-boats of 
the Atlantic shift travellers by tens of thousands from 
the New World to the Old. Some are intent on busi- 
ness errands, some have fixed, educational aims, but 
the majority are travelling for the sake of the pleas- 
ure and profit obtainable from seeing sights. They 
are the tourists. They are the mainstay of conti- 
nental hotels, pensions, and pleasure-resorts. They 
have made every nation in Europe as familiar with 
the Stars and Stripes as with that nation's own ban- 
ner. They are to be seen driving through the streets 
of foreign capitals in strings of barouches, or hustled 
by guides through cathedrals, museums, and galler- 
ies, or "doing" the Alps and the Rhine with one eye 
on the scenery and the other on their Baedeker. They 
drift across the land in hordes. They are everywhere 
contemned and spoken against. Their initiated com- 
patriot winds them afar and flees from their presence. 

To despise a fellow mortal is always easy and 
rather cheap: " 'T is not in folly not to scorn a fool"; 
but the universal attitude toward the tourist is not 
to be explained so readily. To understand the 
pecore di Cook, as the Italians call them, the tour- 
ists of all nations who bear the "mark of the beast" 
i. e., Baedeker, is somewhat harder than to repeat 
stale gibes. I wish I felt equal to the task. 

Sight-seeing is the tourist's chief aim in travel, and 



60 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

this incident illustrates his procedure. One July, a 
certain traveller tried on two different days to see 
" Mona Lisa " in the Salon Carre of the Louvre. Now, 
seeing a picture is a slow, complicated, and by no 
means easy process. In the first place, the light must 
fall right, that is, it must come from behind the spec- 
tator's back, or the picture is practically invisible. 
With the light right, it takes some time even for the 
one person out of every ten who is blessed with normal 
vision to make out the details of any picture. There 
is the work of picking out and then grouping and ar- 
ranging forms and colours. The eye has to penetrate 
a sort of haze of half -seen things to get at the picture 
at all. The brain must be actively alert to assist the 
eye in perceiving what is before it. Any one who has 
ever taken a drawing-lesson knows the difference be- 
tween seeing one cube set on another as a mere process 
of recognition and seeing the model as it really is, a 
relation of lights and shadows, planes and surfaces. 
The difference is incalculable. Having penetrated 
this haze, the spectator's eye has yet to receive aes- 
thetic pleasure from the picture. In other words, the 
spectator must see the picture somewhat as the artist 
did. Unless he is able to share in some minute de- 
gree the artist's creative delight, he has not really 
seen the picture. He may have recognized it, or iden- 
tified it, or have satisfied a thin curiosity about it, 



THE VANITY OF TRAVEL 61 

but unless he has felt some thrill or throb, at least 
as warm as that excited by the prospect of dinner, 
he has not seen the picture. Seeing a picture in this 
sense demands just exactly the price the tourist will 
not pay; that is, time. No work of art yields up its 
secret readily. How can the average man fathom in 
a few seconds a design which it took genius weeks or 
months to elaborate? 

The traveller found the centre of the Salon Carre 
fenced off by a flimsy railing (possibly for repairs), 
which made it impossible to get "Mona Lisa" in the 
right light. He was either too near or too far away, 
no matter how he edged along the barricade. If the 
floor space had been free, he could have shifted to 
the proper distance and angle from which to begin 
seeing Leonardo's masterpiece, but that unlucky 
railing was always in the way. He had to pass on 
at last, and solace himself with the marvellous detail 
and colour of "La Femme Hydropique." So, in 
spite of the best will in the world, he did not see 
"Mona Lisa;" and then she was spirited away. 

During the half-hour he spent in vainly manoeu- 
vring for position, at least eighty persons passed be- 
tween the railing and the picture. If each individual 
directed his eyes full upon the canvas for thirty 
seconds, it was the utmost time he devoted to it. 
He heard what the guide said, ticked off the title in 



62 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

his Baedeker and passed on in procession to the next 
picture, and the next room, and so on through the 
Louvre. Even if the picture left some impression on 
the retina which was transmitted to the brain, it 
must have been at once overlaid, confused, blurred 
and blotted by the train of swift succeeding impres- 
sions. The capacity of the brain for receiving and 
retaining impressions is limited and the saturation 
point is soon reached. 

It would appear, then, that the average tourist is 
continually defeated in the main object of his tour. 
He spends time and money and effort to see sights; 
and he does not see them. Little wonder then that 
the average tourist cannot be reverenced as wise. 
If he cannot even see his sights, the amount of edu- 
cation, experience, culture he derives from travel 
must be practically nil. If he receives pleasure, his 
face does not show it. Picture galleries are the nur- 
series of boredom and fatigue. Two remarks over- 
heard that July day in the Salon Carre were "Das 
ist billig auch" from a plump little Hausfrau, and 
"Haven't I seen all the pictures and all the statu- 
ary? " from a nice American girl of ten, trailing wearily 
in the wake of a family party. What that crowd did 
in the Louvre, they would do again in the Luxem- 
bourg and the other show-places of Paris, and what 
they did in Paris, they would repeat in the other cities 



THE VANITY OF TRAVEL 63 

of Europe. After weeks of fatigue and discomfort, 
they will return to their own place, with an exhausted 
letter of credit and a severe fit of mental indigestion. 
Their photographs and souvenirs and picture post- 
cards and well-marked Baedekers will be alive to 
testify that they have seen certain things. That 
knowledge must represent the utmost extent of the 
profit they have derived from their travail. 

The motive which impels thousands upon thousands 
to endure so much labour and sorrow for such paltry 
returns is precisely the motive which sends thousands 
to Lourdes and Sainte-Anne de Beaupre. It is the 
expectation of miracle. An innate, universal, undy- 
ing instinct of romance sways mankind from the cradle 
to the grave. The lure of the unknown which fills 
religious houses, supports the institution of marriage 
and fits out Arctic expeditions, also draws the tripper 
to the seaside and the Cook's tourist to Paris. The 
unknown, the novel, the strange may have magical 
power. Here, at home, we are poor creatures, but 
change our environment and we shall be different. 
The poor save, and the unnecessarily rich squander, 
for the same end. Both fondly hope that the mere 
sight of strange coasts, of storied cities in alien lands, 
of pictures, cathedrals, mountains will effect some 
agreeable change in their personalities, and continue 
as a bright influence throughout their lives. Perhaps 



6 4 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

they have not clearly considered the nature of that 
change, but one and all expect it to arise from their 
contact with the unknown; and one and all are dis- 
appointed. 

Perhaps those curious German tourists one sees in 
Switzerland are not disappointed. Those flat-chested, 
shapeless women, those stocky men with balustrade 
legs, arrayed in travesties of Norfolk jackets and 
knickers, all furnished with Rucksacks and alpen- 
stocks, are probably to themselves embodiments of 
romance. They have forsaken their offices and their 
kitchens for a fortnight's holiday on a circular ticket; 
but for the time being, they are living in a fairy-tale. 
The alpenstock is the modern equivalent for the 
Pilgerstab, of which a thousand German ballads sing. 
As they march from one hotel to another, they feel 
themselves to be wandering through the wide world 
like the heroes of a thousand Maerchen. They know 
that there is many a road and many a by-way they 
have not yet footed, and many a brew of beer they 
have never tested; and so they carry their atmosphere 
with them, the atmosphere of romance. 

II 

If one turns from his own meagre, personal expe- 
rience to interrogate literature on the subject of travel, 



THE VANITY OF TRAVEL 65 

and to gather up the opinions of the wise, he finds that 
the oracles give various responses. 

Shakespeare seems to countenance the theory that 
travel bestows "breadth," by laying down the prop- 
osition that home-keeping youths have ever homely 
wits. Presumably then, youths sharpen their wits by 
leaving home. At the same time, by the lips of his 
most delightful characters, Portia, Rosalind, Faul- 
conbridge, he quizzes merrily the contemporary 
traveller for his affectation, his conceit, his gen- 
eral absurdity. The Englishman who returned from 
the continent with elaborate foreign manners, for- 
eign raiment, foreign vices, offered a fair target 
for the shafts of satire. Shakespeare ranges himself 
on the side of Ascham and the rest of the Eliza- 
bethan moralists in disapproval of his "Italianate" 
countrymen. 

No later essayist has excelled Bacon in stating gen- 
eral truths about travel within the narrowest com- 
pass. With the younger sort, he holds, travel is a 
part of education, and, with the older sort, a part of 
experience. He sums up exhaustively the things 
which should engage the traveller's attention; he 
recommends some reading by way of preparation, 
some smattering at least of foreign tongues and the 
use of a Baedeker. Curiously enough, he seems to 
admit a value in the superficial by advising not too 



66 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

long a stay in one place. Regarding the benefits to 
accrue from travel, he is not rapturous. 

If Milton nowhere expressly recommends travel, 
his own practice puts his opinion of its value beyond 
all doubt. Travel with him formed a part of his 
elaborate, lifelong scheme of self -education. His prep- 
aration for his Italian journey was thorough; and the 
fifteen months he spent abroad were in all likelihood 
the happiest portion of his life. At thirty he was still 
young enough to enjoy, while his years at the uni- 
versity, his quiet reading at Horton, his Italian stud- 
ies, and his intimacy with the Diodati family must 
have made his scholarly equipment singularly com- 
plete. Doubtless no Englishman ever went to Italy 
better fitted than Mr. John Milton to understand 
and profit by all he saw. With a full purse, he was 
able to travel like a gentleman, attended by a servant, 
and to collect books and music. He had introduc- 
tions of the best, and met distinguished people wher- 
ever he went. Handsome, learned, accomplished, the 
young English scholar was feted and flattered in one 
city after another by the most courteous race in the 
world. The results in both experience and culture 
must have been rich, though they are not perhaps to 
be traced in his work. 

The mellow urbanity which distinguishes the "Spec- 
tator" may be justly set down to Addison's long, 



THE VANITY OF TRAVEL 67 

leisurely travels abroad. He was three years younger 
than Milton when he set out on his grand tour, and, 
like Milton, was fitted by previous studies to appre- 
ciate what he was to see. In four years, he gained 
an unrivalled knowledge of all Europe that was 
worth knowing. King William provided him with a 
handsome pension; and he had no anxieties except to 
improve his mind. Johnson laughs at his "Notes on 
Italy," and his work on medals, and they cannot be 
called inspiring. Addison in his later writings never 
flings liis travels in his readers' face. Except for an 
occasional allusion, one would hardly be aware that 
he had travelled; but his attitude towards English 
life, and especially English politics, must be attributed 
to the fact that he had been able for so long to regard 
them from a distance which revealed their real pro- 
portions. Still, Addison remained unenlightened in 
regard to art. He could see no beauty in Siena Cathe- 
dral. To him it is only another of "these barbarous 
buildings," in the Gothic manner, winch he can still 
tolerate because he has seen St. Peter's. 

Gray's case provides the classical argument for 
travel. His eyes were opened and he saw what no 
man before had seen. He saw the Alps. The shy, 
silent, gifted youth, familiar only with Eton and Cam- 
bridge, and the gentle, domesticated, English land- 
scape, was brought face to face with the wonder and 



68 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

mystery of high hills. Not only were his bodily eyes 
unsealed, but the inward vision was purged as with 
euphrasy and rue. The Grande Chartreuse, which 
was to inspire some of Arnold's noblest, saddest music, 
performed the miracle. Every one knows the famous 
sentences, all glowing beneath their eighteenth-century 
precision: "Not a precipice, not a torrent, not a cliff 
but is pregnant with religion and poetry. There are 
certain scenes that would awe an atheist into belief 
without the help of other argument. One need not 
have a very fantastic imagination to see spirits there 
at noonday; you have Death perpetually before your 
eyes, only so far removed as to compose the mind 
without frighting it." Since Gray wrote these lines 
to West, at Turin in 1739, many have rhapsodized on 
mountains, but no one has packed more meaning 
into fewer, finer words. 

Gray's travelling companion was his ancient friend 
at school and college, "Horry" Walpole, the great 
letter-writer, gossip, and dilettante of Strawberry 
Hill. He saw everything that Gray saw, but whereas 
Gray looked out upon the world with the fresh eye 
of childhood and had a vision of God, Walpole stared 
blankly at Alps and foreign civilizations through a 
modish quizzing-glass, and saw nothing. He returned 
from Italy as shallow as when he went. One shall be 
taken and another left. 



THE VANITY OF TRAVEL 6 9 

Wanderings abroad in the eighteenth century- 
created two little masterpieces, "The Traveller" 
and "A Sentimental Journey." Without the mental 
ferment which contact with foreign countries sets 
up, they could not have been written. The profit 
Goldsmith drew from his two years of obscure vaga- 
bondage was a poem that made him famous, but it 
does not once hint that he found travel a pleasure. 
His vagrant days beside the murmuring Loire, his 
prospect of Lombardy from the Alpine solitude 
must have left their bright impression upon his sensi- 
tive nature; intercourse with the French must have 
deepened his natural kindliness, but they seem to 
have brought him little joy. Goldsmith is always 
the Exile of Erin. The note of melancholy echoes 
through the poem to the very end. His review of 
European society in support of his untenable thesis 
is underlain by the inexpugnable, haunting home- 
sickness of the Irishman. Every stage of his journey 
away from the dear faces glowing in the fire on the 
hearth, merely lengthens his chain and makes it 
heavier to bear. 

Trailing about from barracks to barracks with 
the baggage of his father's regiment, little Laurence 
Sterne picked up a broad and genial knowledge of 
mankind, and when, as a middle-aged scampish 
parson, he crossed the Channel into France, he felt 



7 o LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

that he was coming home. The first sentence of 
"A Sentimental Journey" has become a proverb, 
and by itself furnishes proof positive of the author's 
triumph over insular prejudice. Let prudes say 
what they will, Sterne is the pleasantest of travel- 
ling companions. His very sentimentality was an 
attempt to soften an age as hard as the nether mill- 
stone. A little Sterne was surely needed to mollify 
much Hogarth and Smollett. 

Of course Johnson's opinion of travel is recorded. 
The Great Cham had his views on all the chief con- 
cerns of life. "He talked (at Mr. William Scott's 
dinner-table in the Temple) with an uncommon 
animation of travelling into distant countries, that 
the mind was enlarged by it, and that an acquisi- 
tion of dignity of character was derived from it." 
But he had a very distant objective in his mind, to 
wit, the Great Wall of China. Travel, to Johnson 
and to his friends, meant discovery of the unknown. 
Boswell "catched" the enthusiasm of curiosity and 
adventure when he wished to accompany Captain 
Cook on his voyage to the South Seas. Johnson re- 
fused to write an account of his travels in France 
because the subject was overdone, because he had 
nothing new to say, because he had not remained 
long enough, because he was afraid of being laughed 
at. Boswell urged with justice that even when we 



THE VANITY OF TRAVEL 71 

have seen a face often, it gains interest from being 
painted by Sir Joshua. He knew the value of tem- 
perament. Their romantic expedition to the Hebrides 
was in truth a voyage of discovery. Here Boswell 
and Johnson come into competition, and the disciple 
proves himself a better traveller than his master, or 
at least, a better recorder of travel. 

The rise of the Romantic School in literature stim- 
ulated enormously the latent appetite for travel; 
for the Romantic School discovered Gothic archi- 
tecture and mountains; and these do not grow by 
every hedge. To see them, one must travel. Words- 
worth crossed Europe on foot, and his sojourn in 
France definitely opened his mind to new ideas, for 
he became an ardent upholder of the Revolution. 
Coleridge spent a winter in Germany and brought 
back a philosophy. Scott's poetry doubled the post- 
ing-rates into Scotland. But the vogue of Byron, 
and especially of "Childe Harold," must be held 
chiefly responsible for what Carlyle calls "the modern 
disease of view-hunting." On the Continent, Rous- 
seau preached with success "Return to Nature." 
Then steam made travel by land and sea both cheap 
and rapid, and everybody travelled. So the assump- 
tion took shape that travel should form an essential 
part of education, or experience or culture. It is a 
thing of yesterday. 



72 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

All that can be safely inferred from the record of 
literature and the lives of great men is that genius 
will profit by travel, as it will profit by any expe- 
rience. The degree of profit will vary greatly. 
Winckelmann's visit to Rome gave the world a new 
conception of classic art and founded modern scholar- 
ship. Goethe considered that his two Italian jour- 
neys exerted a great influence upon him; but the 
literary outcome was the "Roman Elegies," which 
the world has very willingly let die. But genius is 
rare; it is the value of travel for the many which 
must be determined. 

What is •'vaguely called "breadth" is generally 
assumed to be a valuable quality and to be the chief 
reaction of travel. As the work of the world is done 
by "narrow" people, as all religions, reforms, and 
revolutions spring from the "narrowness" of men 
who believe themselves to be right and their oppo- 
nents wrong, it is possible that the value of "breadth" 
may be overrated. That travel is a sure cure for 
national prejudices is scarcely borne out by the facts. 
Even where national differences are slightest, as, 
for example, between the English and the Americans, 
it cannot be maintained that intercourse between 
the two peoples conquers the insular or the provin- 
cial spirit. The long line of British travellers in the 
United States, from Basil Hall and Mrs. Trollope 



THE VANITY OF TRAVEL 73 

to Matthew Arnold, manifest narrowness rather than 
breadth in their judgment. They return from their 
travels generally confirmed in their home-bred dis- 
like for the people they have visited. The same is 
true of American travellers to England, with the 
notable exception of Emerson. Even Hawthorne 
dislikes the English people, while admiring the 
country. English travellers on the continent are 
not conspicuous for breadth of mind, and their re- 
corded impressions are generally expansions and va- 
riations of MeynelPs famous dictum, "For all I can 
see, foreigners are fools." Thackeray travelled much; 
as a young man he resided in Weimar, and took 
tea once (at midday) with the godlike Goethe; but 
in his novels, he supports the popular English no- 
tion that Frenchmen and Germans are poor creatures, 
made to be laughed at. 

Foreigners return the compliment with energy. 
The average French traveller's account of the mad 
English manners and customs is just as absurd as 
the average British traveller's view of the frivolous 
Gauls. Once in a decade or so, a book like Hamer- 
ton's "French and English" appears, or Pierre de 
Coulevain's "L'Isle Inconnue," in which an honest 
effort is made to do justice to the alien race. But 
the enlightenment they afford hardly penetrates the 
night of popular ignorance. All one nation knows 



74 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

of another is gross caricature, which travellers 
generally confirm. In his charming "Sensations 
d'ltalie," Bourget makes a significant confession. 
He tells of his prolonged efforts to understand the 
English, of his residence for weeks and months in 
various parts of the kingdom, and of his free inter- 
course with all kinds of men and women, high and 
low. In spite of his best efforts, he found no answer 
to the riddle of national character. It is a sort of 
impenetrable armour-plate. Where Bourget failed, 
lesser men will hardly succeed. 

Ill 

While, then, it must be clear that, for the majority 
of mankind, travel is a modern superstition, another 
symptom of the universal unrest, that it is almost 
barren of real profit and true pleasure, that it does 
not always benefit even men of genius, or soften 
national prejudices, there still remains the problem 
of its fascination. There is a temperament which 
finds in travel supreme satisfaction and delight. It 
is a childlike temperament, at once adventurous 
and dreamy. It preserves to maturity the child's 
universal curiosity, the child's receptivity, the child's 
easy capacity for enjoyment. Being vividly alive, 
" ennui" and "boredom" are for it words without 



THE VANITY OF TRAVEL 75 

meaning. The price it has to pay in bodily discom- 
fort, it never stops to reckon. Stevenson had this 
temperament, and Boswell, and Froissart, the true 
"enthusiasm of curiosity and adventure." In his 
fiftieth year the Canon of Chimay set out from Car- 
cassonne for the country of Gaston de Foix. His 
preface breathes the spirit of the happy traveller: 
"As yet I thank God I have understanding of all 
things past, and my wit quick and sharp enough to 
conceive all things shewed unto me touching my 
principal matter and my body yet able to endure 
and suffer pain." That must have been one of the 
most delightful journeys ever undertaken. Frois- 
sart had an excellent travelling companion of his 
own age, Sir Espang de Lyon, who knew the stories 
of every strong place and told them to the great 
historian as they rode ever westward. His mention 
of Pamiers as "delectable, standing among the fair 
vines and environed with a fair river, large and clear," 
his grateful memory of the four flagons of wine Sir 
Raymond of Lane brought to the "Star" at Tournay, 
as the best "that I drank in all my journey," his 
commendation of the hay and oats procurable at 
Tarbes, show how catholic was his appreciation of 
the good things along the way. Every morning 
after the knight had said his prayers, he chatted with 
the eager Canon on local history, "whereby I thought 



76 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

my journey much the shorter," and "every night 
as soon as we were at our lodgings, I wrote ever all 
that I heard in the day, the better whereby to have 
them in remembrance." In his ability to enjoy and 
to learn, Froissart is the model traveller. 

The fortunate possessor of the traveller tempera- 
ment will have his curiosity aroused to the point of 
enthusiasm regarding foreign lands, long before he 
has ever set eye upon them. In spirit he has often 
adventured thither. He will learn consciously or un- 
consciously much of their history, their literature, 
their art. He may even acquire something of foreign 
tongues that he may be able to greet brothers of an 
alien race. He will pore over maps and plans and 
sketch itineraries. He will map out a hundred jour- 
neys for one that he shall achieve. He will travel in 
his armchair by his own fireside. He will hang on 
the lips of travellers who have performed their pil- 
grimage. All his preparation may go for nought. 
He may never stir beyond his own parish. He may 
die, as the song says, without ever seeing Carcas- 
sonne; but death itself shall not deprive him of the 
rich pleasure of anticipation. 

Should his stars be propitious, anticipation may 
become reality. Some day his dream may come true, 
and he will carry out his long cherished design. He 
will set out with the hopes of Columbus, and he will 



THE VANITY OF TRAVEL 77 

discover new worlds. It will be impossible to disap- 
point him. Everything small or great, — the coat 
of arms on an English engine and Giotto's campanile, 
the lemonade-seller by the Loggia dei Lanzi, and 
the Perseus of Cellini, the pink hawthorn beside the 
Cher, and the mountain peak that hangs over Lake 
Lucerne at Brunnen — each has for him its interest 
apart. His enthusiasm of curiosity and adventure 
will grow by what it feeds on. Cities and govern- 
ments of men, well-tilled fields and hills whose heads 
touch heaven, steep, lonely paths and thronging 
boulevards, monuments to the heroic dead, shrines, 
praying-places, great storehouses of beautiful things, 
workmen in narrow alleys and dark shops, soldiers 
and sailors in strange uniforms, mountebanks at 
street corners, — whatever is strange and stately 
and human will crowd impressions on his open, 
eager mind without ever overloading it. He will be 
all eye and ear; and yet the eye will not be filled with 
seeing, nor the ear with hearing. 

A lengthened stay in each place will not be req- 
uisite. Even if he be restricted to mere glimpses 
of strange lands, even if he may only spend days 
where he would fain spend months, the true traveller 
will express the utmost sweet from every moment of 
his sojourn. The first morsel of a feast is more keenly 
savoured than the last. One glance at a foreign 



7 8 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

sight may answer a long considered question. Sud- 
denly the key may be found to fit the lock. One 
.stroll through the Luxembourg gardens filled with 
busy French housewives, each with her bit of work 
in her lap, may contradict a thousand scabrous 
novels. Even where the voyager fails to grasp the 
meaning of what he sees, the unsolved mystery be- 
comes part of the romance in which he is living. 

For the true traveller is a king in exile, a prince 
in disguise. In a measure he has shed his personality 
on his departure from the familiar environment. He 
has escaped from his shadow. He is no longer plain 
Mr. Suchanone known to all in the home place, but 
that exciting thing, a stranger among strangers. 
He is a mystery to his fellow-passengers in the train 
or the other diners in the cafe; and they are equally 
mysteries to him, so many human beings, each with 
his own life, his undivulged and guarded secret. 
And yet the true traveller is never alone and never 
feels far from home. A mouthful or two of foreign 
speech backed by good will finds him friends in every 
place. The ability to make a poor joke with his 
neighbour on a bateau-mouche, or to question his 
gondolier, or even to ask his way about a German 
city will procure the boon of human intercourse. 
Bacon was quite right when he wrote, "He that 
travelleth into a country, before he hath some en- 



THE VANITY OF TRAVEL 79 

trance into the language, goeth to school, and not 
to travel." 

Mere progression, mere moving from place to 
place, continually toward the unknown, even what 
dull people call "a prosaic railway journey" is the 
traveller's joy. Vistas open out on either hand, 
alluring towards the sky-line. What he sees is 
strange and new, but there is beyond that hill some- 
thing still more wonderful which he will never see. 
Aimless explorations of foreign thoroughfares, drift- 
ing with the tides of life along unfamiliar streets, are 
long adventures crammed with episodes. The joy 
of wandering is slow to pall, and it is to be enjoyed 
at the full when a man shakes himself free of all 
aids but his native powers and marches forth alone 
into the wide world. Pleasant enough in cities 
though wandering be, it is only in the open country 
that it reaches the full growth of delight. Only 
when the traveller has turned his back on the city 
does he hear plainly far within the deepest recesses 
of his being the welling music of nature's eternal 
wander-song. Many poets have tried to translate it 
into mere words; and many versions have rendered 
thus much, or that part; but beyond question the 
palm goes to the German people. In their speech 
is the most glorious song of the open road ever 
written: — 



8o LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

O Wandern! O Wandern! du freie Burschenlust! 
Da wehet Gottes Odem so frisch in der Brust! 
Da singet und jauchzet das Herz zum Himmelszelt; 
Wie bist du doch so schon, O du weite, weite Welt. - 

The traveller who knows that song has always 
May about him. The trees are bursting into leaf, 
the birds are singing on every bough, and his heart 
joins in sweet accord. 

Beyond all controversy, then, great is the joy of 
travel, great in anticipation, great in the actual mo- 
ment, and great also in the golden retrospect. Pleas- 
ure is a pure good, say the philosophers, reacting on 
and heightening the vitality. But, after all, the 
pleasure of travel is only a pleasure, like any other; 
and it passes. It perishes in the using. It is gone, 
like the joy of a tearing gallop, or a full creel, or a 
Christmas dinner, or a well won victory at golf, or 
a Marie Hall concert, or a talk about realities with 
a friend. Even for the exceptional nature, the joy 
of travel fades to a pleasant memory in a limbo of 
pleasant memories. 

Probably the educative effect of travel is also less 
than people think. The younger sort may be too 
young to profit by .it, and the older sort too firm in 
mental set to be in any way remoulded. Of course, 
seeing is believing. Unimaginative people must 
have the object before their bodily eyes. Unless 
they can look on the glass case in Greenwich hospital 



THE VANITY OF TRAVEL 81 

which holds Nelson's coat with the tarnished orders 
on the breast and the jagged hole in the left epaulet, 
they can never realize the heroism of Trafalgar. 
But without the sight of that sacred relic, thousands 
have thrilled to Southey's impassioned prose. It is 
also true that even those of suppler fancy profit by 
travelling through their geography and history. 
Their knowledge gains in definite outline and pre- 
cision. It may be conceded further that the rare, 
predestined traveller will by travel deepen and 
broaden his sympathies. To stand in the very 
square that saw the agony of Joan the Maid, to read 
the one word "immerita" in her epitaph can unlock 
the fountain of tears. To see Teh's mountains is to 
gain insight into the progress of human freedom. 
To wander through the Forum explains the grandeur 
that was Rome, and the frieze at the base of Victor 
Emmanuel's statue of golden bronze glorifies the 
Risorgimento. The tow-boats on the Rhine, and the 
factory chimneys among the ruined castles epito- 
mize the history of Germany. So much may be 
granted. Still, more than half the value of such 
impressions depends upon the previous preparation, 
or, to be exact, upon the traveller's knowledge of 
books; and if he had to choose between books and 
travel, he would not hesitate a minute. A man with 
the temperament I have tried to describe will, be- 



82 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

yond question, learn many things, enrich his ex- 
perience and acquire new impressions by a journey 
to Rome, but he will also enrich his experience and 
gather fresh impressions by a ramble of a few miles 
from his own front door. He is independent of mere 
place. An afternoon's march over an accustomed 
road up a nameless Pisgah overlooking a valley and 
a river, or an hour alone on an island of rock in the 
centre of a silent autumn landscape will disturb him 
with the joy of elevated thoughts. In Holy Week, 
he may light upon three crosses on a hillock near the 
highway and not far from the city. 

The truth seems to be that for the many, travel is 
scant gain, while for the chosen few, most apt to 
profit thereby, it is a luxury but no necessity. 



TENNYSON AS ARTIST 



TENNYSON AS ARTIST 



TO us who were born and bred on this, the hither 
side, of the Atlantic, the poetry of Tennyson is, 
and must needs be, exotic. As time goes on and the 
two great branches of the English-speaking race, the 
insular and the continental, grow further and further 
apart in their separate development of national and 
social ideals, the more strange and foreign will his 
work appear to all who are not British born. The 
conditions of time and place that made, or modified 
his verse are passing, if they have not actually passed 
away. It is quite improbable that they will ever be 
renewed. To his own England, Tennyson is already 
the voice of a bygone age. To us of Canada, he sings 
of a world almost as remote and incredible as Fairy- 
land. This region of romance is the England of the 
early nineteenth century, the first part of the Victorian 
era. His life, his surroundings, the institutions that 
went to form the man and his art are so different from 
our own, that part of his meaning and many of his 
subtleties escape us. Because he writes our mother 

85 



86 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

tongue, we flatter ourselves that we understand him. 
In a measure, we may catch the air, but we miss the 
overtones. 

For Tennyson is an ultra English type. He is 
an exponent of the national shyness and love of 
privacy. We live a public or communistic life, herd- 
ing in flats, in hotels, in boarding-houses, conditions 
which make home in the old sense an impossibility. 
Throughout Tennyson's long life, his house was his 
castle. From birth to death, the poet was a recluse, 
as a child in a country rectory, as a student in an 
English college, as a country gentleman in haunts of 
ancient peace. When Farringford became infested 
with tourists, he built himself the more inaccessible 
fastness of Aldworth. He attended an obsolete kind 
of college, in which the main interests of the students 
were literature, philosophy, politics and art, and not 
athletics. He grew up amid the rolling echoes of 
England's long, fierce, life-and-death struggle with 
Napoleon. His early manhood was passed in the 
era of those great political and social changes that 
made a new England. Throughout those changes, he 
remained a steadfast though moderate conservative. 
His religion and philosophy were profoundly affected 
by the new scientific conceptions associated chiefly 
with the name of Darwin. He was a lifelong admirer 
of the great State Church into which he had been 



TENNYSON AS ARTIST 87 

born. With it, he accepted, while he criticized, the 
social fabric as he found it. He was always a member 
of a society aristocratic in the literal sense, a society 
distinguished by true refinement, intellectual culture, 
lofty ethical standards. The organization of the 
Church, the system of education which he knew, can- 
not, without special study, be understood by Canadi- 
ans. The very landscape he describes, the very fauna 
and flora of his verse, are strange and foreign to us. 
Indeed, the literature of the daisy, the primrose, the 
daffodil, the cowslip, the violet must always remain 
but half comprehended by all who have not known 
those flowers from childhood. For us these common 
English wild flowers, almost weeds, are lovely exotics. 
One example will do as well as a hundred. The 
appeal of such a verse as this falls absolutely dead 
on Canadian ears : — 

The smell of violets, hidden in the green, 
Pour'd back into my empty soul and frame 

The times when I remember to have been 
Joyful and free from blame. 

In the first place we do not see the picture, "violets 
hidden in the green." Our native violets have colour, 
but no perfume. English violets fill English meadows. 
Here they are nursed tenderly in hothouses. Few of 
us have been so fortunate as to gather the shy blue 
blossoms in an English May from the grass they hide 



88 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

among, while the hot sun fills the whole air with their 
delicate, intoxicating odour. In the next place, our 
associations with these flowers, no matter how inti- 
mately we know them, must be different from those 
who have seen them come every spring since child- 
hood. English violets suggest to us damp florists' 
shops, engagements, and pretty girls on Sunday pa^- 
rade. The very last thing they could suggest to us is 
the child's Eden, the time of our innocence. For Ten- 
nyson, as for many of his English readers, the chain 
of association between the two is indissoluble. 

And the sense of the difference between Tennyson's 
world and our own grows stronger the more we study 
his work. We have no eyes for the English posies 
with which the English poets strew their pages. We 
cannot perceive the woodland and garden odours 
those pages exhale. We have no ears for the note of 
the cuckoo, the carol of the lark, the music of the 
nightingale that ring and thrill through a thousand 
English poems. To us the poetry of the village church, 
of the cathedral close, the hedgerow, the lane, the 
park, the cottage, the castle, the "great house," has 
one meaning, while for those whose lives have been 
spent with these things, it has another and quite 
different meaning. English readers bring to the in- 
terpretation of Tennyson a wealth of experience, asso- 
ciation, affection we absolutely lack. We either miss 



TENNYSON AS ARTIST 89 

that meaning altogether, or feel it vaguely, or trans- 
late it into terms of our own experience. Apart from 
their own value and significance, all these things are 
symbols of a life far separated from our own. 

Of this local English life, Tennyson is the chief 
poet. There is a certain insularity in him. His 
sympathies are limited. Critics like Taine and Dow- 
den remark the English narrowness of his outlook, 
and they are right. He cultivated his poetic garden 
behind stone walls. Perhaps his most characteristic 

lines are 

There is no land like England 
Where'er the light of day be. 

There his heart speaks. This is the first article of 
his practical working creed. Though he can find flaws 
in the social fabric, as in "Aylmer's Field" and 
"Locksley Hall," he does not want it torn down, or a 
new-fangled one take its place. He could not live in 
any other. Browning, his brother Olympian, ranges 
Europe and European literatures for subjects. Ten- 
nyson is generally content to abide within the narrow 
seas and the marches of Scotland and Wales. He 
loves freedom, but it must be freedom of the English 
pattern. He is thoroughly English in his attitude 
toward foreigners, "the lesser breeds without the law." 
He is more English than even Wordsworth, who, 
though he began as a red Republican, ended as a 



9 o LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

Tory and a High Churchman. Still in his fervid youth, 
Wordsworth could dance around the table hand in 
hand with the Marseillaise delegates to the Conven- 
tion for pure joy at the Revolution. In the "men of 
July," in the barricades of '48, Tennyson could see 
only "the red fool-fury of the Seine." In Scotland, 
Wordsworth is moved to song by the braes of Yarrow, 
the grave of Rob Roy, and the very field where Burns 
ploughed up the daisy. In Edinburgh, it is true, 
Tennyson writes of the daisy, but it is a withered 
flower in a book, which recalls not Burns or Scotland, 
but his own visit to Italy. 

The friendliest critic must concede that Tennyson's 
sympathies are limited, that his outlook is rather 
narrow, that his thinking is somewhat restricted by 
English conventions, that his subjects are by prefer- 
ence English subjects and his landscapes are English 
landscapes. In a word, he is not a universal, but a 
local, poet, a singer of the land he was born into, of 
the one time he knew. This may be considered his 
weakness, but it is also his strength. This is a great 
excellence, to body forth the thoughts and aspirations, 
to interpret in song the life of a nation throughout one 
stage of its progress toward its unknown goal. 

The charm of England for the American traveller is 
special and unique. Irving tried to express it in "The 
Sketch-Book," Hawthorne tried to express it in 



TENNYSON AS ARTIST 91 

"Our Old Home," Howells tried to express it in "Eng- 
lish Films." This charm is made up of many parts, 
the soft, domestic landscape, the evidence on every 
hand of a rich, ordered, long-established civilization, 
the historical and literary associations. What the 
well-attuned observer feels from without, Tennyson, 
the son of the soil, feels from within. His poetry is 
steeped in it, and moves in a pure, fine atmosphere 
of beauty, of dignity, of elevated thought, of noble 
emotion. So thorough an Englishwoman as Thack- 
eray's daughter wrote: "One must be English born, I 
think, to know how English is the spell which this 
great enchanter casts over us; the very spirit of the 
land descends upon us, as the visions he evokes come 
closing round." England cannot possibly be as beau- 
tiful as Tennysonland, for over that broods the con- 
secration and the poet's dream. Still it is a fair land, 
rich in natural beauty, rich in memories of great deeds, 
rich in great men, a mother of nations. How far 
soever the various branches of our race may diverge, 
our common literature must remain a great bond, a 
force making for unity. So the poetry of Tennyson 
will long continue to the new nations the symbol of 
what was noblest in the life of the home island, a 
rallying-point for those souls that are touched to the 
finest issues. The wise Goethe declares that whoever 
wishes to understand a poet must journey to the 



92 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

poet's land. It is also true that the poetry arouses 
interest in the poet's land and leads us to think well 
of the people he represents. So may a study of verse 
lead to a mutual knowledge in nations, that more and 
more perfect understanding which makes for the har- 
mony of the world and was Tennyson's own dream. 

II 

Tennyson has been greatly praised as a moralist, 
a philosopher and a religious teacher. He is not with- 
out significance under every one of these aspects, 
but under none of them did he first come before the 
world. He was first, last, and always an artist, an 
artist born, an artist by training, an artist] to the 
tips of his fingers and to the marrow of his bones. He 
belongs to that small band of illuminated spirits to 
whom the universe reveals itself chiefly as wonder 
and beauty. They live in the credo of Fra Lippo 

Lippi, — 

If you get simple beauty and naught else 
You get about the best thing God invents. 

They can never rest until they have embodied their 
visions in outward form. Haunted by both the rap- 
ture of achievement and the heavy consciousness of 
failure, they strive to interpret this basal principle 
of the universe into colour, or bronze, or marble, or 



TENNYSON AS ARTIST 93 

tone, or sweet-flowing words. From youth to age, 
Tennyson is an artist whose chosen medium is lan- 
guage, a seer who renders into words the visions of 
beauty vouchsafed to his eyes; he is a singer, a poet. 
Like Milton he dedicated his whole long life to his 
art. He held no office, he adopted no bread-winning 
profession. He never deviated into prose. His pro- 
gramme of self-culture was never interrupted by any 
Latin secretaryship, still less by two decades of noisy 
pamphleteering. Like Milton, he set out with a lofty 
conception of the poet's vocation. He, too, would 
first make himself a true poem if he would not be 
frustrate of his hope to write well hereafter in laud- 
able things. He was not content to be the idle singer 
of an empty day, like Morris, though perhaps he did 
aspire on the other hand to be, like Shelley, one of the 
unacknowledged legislators of the world. He is him- 
self the best example of his own description: — 

The poet in a golden clime was born, 

With golden stars above; 
Dower'd with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn, 

The love of love. 

The poet is a seer; he is an influence; through him 
truth is multiplied on truth until the world shows like 
one great garden: freedom which is wisdom arises 
and shakes the world with the poet's scroll. Few 
youthful poets have had a more beautiful dream of 



94 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

the poet's place and power. The golden clime he is 
born into is lighted by the same golden stars that 
shone upon Spenser's realm of faerie. To every aura 
of beauty he is tremblingly alive. The alluring mys- 
teries, the puzzling revelations of the loveliness of 
women, the form and colour of the visible world, 
dreams and flowers and the morning of the times — 
of these he is the youthful interpreter. His earliest 
poems dwell apart 

In regions mild of calm and serene air 
Above the smoke and stir of this dim spot 
That men call Earth. 

It seems as if nothing ever could perturb that ample, 
tranced, pellucid ether. He is himself an unwitting 
prisoner in his own Palace of Art, until the bolt that 
struck down the friend at his side shattered also the 
airy dome of that stately fabric and left him desolate 
to all the bleak winds of the world. But from the 
very dawn of consciousness till its eclipse in death, 
he followed hard after the Gleam. 

The record shows him to have been an artist in all 
parts of his life. He thought of his work as a painter 
thinks of his, considering subjects, studying them, 
selecting some, rejecting others, making large plans, 
meditating form, outline, disposition of masses, de- 
tail, ornament, finish. He harvested his thoughts, 
he even garnered in his dreams. He made his plein 



TENNYSON AS ARTIST 95 

air sketches which he afterwards worked up carefully 
in the studio. j He was not perfect at first; he made 
errors, but he persisted and he attained to mastery. 
He lived for and in his art and at last his art enabled 
him to live. He had the artist's patience; he was, in 
his own phrase, a man of long-enduring hopes. He 
could be silent for ten years, the ten precious years 
between twenty and thirty when the work of most 
poets is done and over. He could build slowly through 
seventeen years the lofty rhyme of his elegies in mem- 
ory of his friend enskied and sainted; and he could 
follow out the plan of his "Idylls" for forty. His 
poetic career is the career of a star, unhasting but 
unresting. He offers for our acceptance no frag- 
ments, only completed things. At the same time, he 
had the artist's fury, composing "Enoch Arden" in a 
fortnight, or "The Revenge" in a few days, after keep- 
ing the first line on his desk for years. He had his 
frequent hours of inspiration when he waited mys- 
tically for things to "come" to him. "Crossing the 
Bar" "came" thus. Another mark of the true artist 
was his insatiable hunger and thirst after perfection. 
Deep down in his nature burned an unquenchable 
contempt for weaklings who set the "how much before 
the how." In his ears sullen Lethe sounded perpetu- 
ally, rolling doom on man and on all the work of his 
hands. His inmost conviction was that nothing could 



96 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

endure, and yet, in his humility, he held nothing fit 
for the inevitable sacrifice but his very best. 



Ill 

How did Tennyson become an artist? Taught by 
Taine, we are now no longer content merely to accept 
the fact of genius, we must account for it; at least 
we must try to solve the problem. We feel that it is 
laid upon us to explain this revelation of the spirit 
that is in man. All methods must be used to discover 
the x, the unknown quantity. The favourite form of 
the equation is: — 

original endowment + race+ environment =x. 

In a Byron, the problem is simplicity itself. His 
father is a handsome rake, his mother is a fool, a 
fury, an aristocratic sympathizer with the Revolution ; 
his nurse is a Scottish Presbyterian; he is brought up 
amid Highland scenery. Hence it follows that George 
Gordon will be a libertine, a poet of libertinism and 
liberty, a singer of revolt and protest, a lover of moun- 
tains, a timid sceptic. In a Ruskin, the problem pre- 
sents few difficulties. His father is " an entirely honest 
merchant" who is able to take his young son to see 
all the best pictures and all the best scenery in Europe. 
His mother educates i him in the noble English of 
King James's Bible. His childish delight is in study- 



TENNYSON AS ARTIST 97 

ing the pattern of the dining-room carpet. Inevitably 
John Ruskin will grow into a supreme art critic, with 
a style of unrivalled pliancy and beauty. But with 
Tennyson the method of Taine breaks down. There 
seems to be nothing in his early life or training to make 
him a poet. True, his brothers and sisters were "a 
little clan of poets," and he himself lisped in numbers. 
But he lived until manhood nearly in a tiny retired 
hamlet, a perfect Robinson Crusoe's Island for seclu- 
sion, in a flat, uninteresting part of England, without 
the mental stimulus of travel or contact with the 
world. Arthur Hallam, the brilliant Etonian, spend- 
ing his holidays on the Continent, meeting the most 
distinguished men and women of the time, in his own 
father's house is plainly in process of becoming a man 
of letters, while his predestined friend, reading, dream- 
ing, making verses in the quiet of Somersby rectory, 
enjoys none of these advantages. "The wind bloweth 
where it listeth and thou hearest the sound thereof 
but canst not tell whither it cometh." 

Still the boy Tennyson composed unweariedly in 
verse. At eighteen, he published with his brother a 
volume of juvenilia, which are plainly imitative and 
derivative. It fell dead from the press. At twenty- 
one, he published a volume of poems, which dates 
the beginning of a new chapter in the long, majestic 
chronicle of English literature. What made the dif- 



9 8 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

ference? What changed the literary mocking-bird into 
the new poet? My answer is, Cambridge. The most 
momentous act in Tennyson's whole life was going 
up to the university in 1828. No later experience, 
not grief for Hallam's death, not the discipline of his 
ten silent years, not the reward of wedded life after 
long waiting, not the laureateship and his many 
other honours, not the birth and death of his sons 
could mould his life and genius, as did that scant 
three years' residence at Cambridge. But for Cam- 
bridge and Trinity College, he could never have made 
his lifelong friends, Hallam, Spedding, Brookfield, the 
"Apostles"; and Tennyson's friendships had no small 
or trivial influence on his life. At that time, he was 
not conscious of his debt, and wrote a sonnet proph- 
esying dire things for his university when the daybeam 
should sport o'er Albion, because "you" (the authori- 
ties) 

teach us nothing, feeding not the heart. 

This is as it should be. Youthful genius should 
disparage university systems; they are calculated for 
the average, not for the exceptional, academic person. 
But Tennyson could not escape the influence of Cam- 
bridge ; it was much greater than he knew. Cambridge 
colours much of his poetry; for example, the architec- 
ture in "The Princess" and "The Palace of Art" is 
the English collegiate order glorified. He has left us 



TENNYSON AS ARTIST 99 

no second "Prelude," or growth of a poet's mind, to 
guide investigation. "The Memoir" itself does not 
convey as much information as can be gathered from 
the poet's own hints and reminiscences in "In Memo- 
rium." The intercourse with equal minds for the first 
time in his life, during his most plastic years, counted 
for most; but even the despised university system it- 
self was not without its formative power. The Cam- 
bridge undergraduate who had written "Poems chiefly 
Lyrical" by twenty-one, was very different from the 
boy of eighteen who collaborated in "Poems by Two 
Brothers." Cambridge and Cambridge men made the 
difference, or nothing did. His college days were the 
budding-time of Tennyson's genius. 

As Birrell has pointed out with so much humour, 
Cambridge and not Oxford is the mother of most 
English poets, who are also university men. The 
University of Spenser, Milton, Dryden, Wordsworth, 
Coleridge, Byron was also Tennyson's. He is in the 
direct line of a great tradition. When he came up, he 
seems to have become at once a member of a brilliant 
group of young men, by some sort of undisputed right, 
and the most brilliant member of that group became 
his most intimate friend. Since the days of David 
and Jonathan, no friendship has been more deep and 
tender, or embalmed in nobler poetry. The two 
were in physique a complete contrast, the contrast of 



ioo LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

the oak and the birch tree. Both were six feet in 
height, but Tennyson was massive in build, broad- 
shouldered and notably strong-looking, while Hallam 
was slight and gracefully slim. Tennyson was dark 
brown in hair, eyes, and complexion, "Indian-look- 
ing," "like an Italian," as he has been described. 
Hallam was the familiar blond Saxon type, with fair 
hair, blue eyes, and regular features. Both had the 
distinction of great personal beauty. Lawrence's por- 
trait shows the poet in his youth looking as a young 
poet should look, "a sort of Hyperion," Fitz Gerald 
called him; and Chantrey's bust of Hallam portrays 
the finest type of English gentleman. Two more 
noticeable youths never wore cap and gown in Cam- 
bridge, or paced together "that long walk of limes." 
Their unlikeness in manner and mental gifts was 
equally marked. Tennyson was the country boy, 
shy, reserved, a trifle awkward, Hallam was already 
the easy, polished man of the world. Tennyson was 
silent, a quiet figure in a corner of a noisy room: 
Hallam was fluent, and shone in conversation and 
discussion. Tennyson's was the slower, stronger, 
deeper nature; Hallam's the more brilliant and at- 
tractive personality. Tennyson was more of the art- 
ist; Hallam was more of the philosopher. Hallam 
was the acknowledged leader, the young man, who, 
every one was certain, would go far. Tennyson was 



TENNYSON AS ARTIST 101 

the poet, admired and honoured greatly by those for- 
tunate undergraduates who first listened to the bard 
chant his own poems "Oriana" or "The Hesperides," 
mouthing his hollow os and as. Their friendship was 
the attraction of^opposites, mutual, intimate, un- 
troubled. The seal was set upon the bond by Hal- 
lam's betrothal to the sister of his friend. 

It seems probable that Hallam did for Tennyson at 
Cambridge what Coleridge did for Wordsworth at 
Nether Stowey. The keen intellectual interests stir- 
ring in that remarkable little coterie must in them- 
selves have worked powerfully upon his mind and 
formed a congenial atmosphere in which his genius 
might blossom. But Hallam's affection, sympathy, 
admiration seem to have done even more for him; 
and his acute, alert, philosophic intelligence in free 
interplay with Tennyson's more vague and dreamy 
thought seems to have released and stimulated the 
powers of the poet's mind. No record remains of 
the discussions of the "youthful band" so lovingly 
sketched in "In Memoriam." In his friendship with 
Hallam seems to lie the secret of Tennyson's rapid 
early development. 

Cambridge completed the education which had been 
carried on at home under his father's direction, a 
singularly old-fashioned scholarly training, classical 
in a narrow sense. Tennyson was not, like Shelley, a 



102 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

rebel against routine; nor, like Byron, a restless seeker 
of adventures; nor, like Scott, a sportsman, a lover 
of dogs and horses. He did not, like Browning, edu- 
cate himself. Books were his world. His love for the 
classics was deep and real, as his exquisite tribute 
to Virgil proves, and their influence is unmistakable 
everywhere throughout his work. From his classical 
training he gained his unerring sense for the values 
of words, his love of just proportion, his literary 
"temperance," his restraint in all effects, emotional 
and picturesque. "Nothing too much" was a prin- 
ciple he followed throughout his poetic career. From 
classical example he learned the labour of the file, a 
labour he never stinted. He practised the Horatian 
maxim about suppressing until the ninth year. He 
knew well how to prize the creation that comes swift 
and perfect in a happy hour; he knew well the danger 
of changing and altering many times, — 

Till all be ripe and rotten, 

but he had a great patience in finish, "the damascen- 
ing on the blade of the scimitar" as one critic calls 
it. Finish, rightly understood, is but an untiring 
quest of truth. The pursuit of the mot juste, the 
matching of the colours of words, the exactness in 
the shading of phrases are no more than stages in a 
process of setting forth the poet's conception with 



TENNYSON AS ARTIST 103 

simple truth. To rest content with a form of words 
which merely approximates to the expression of the 
idea is, to a mind of Tennyson's temper, to be guilty 
of falsity. 

In his choice of themes, as well as in his manner, 
Tennyson's love of the classics is made manifest. He 
prefers romantic themes, notably the Arthurian sagas, 
but his devotion to the myths of Hellas is lifelong. 
"CEnone" is one of the chief beauties of the volume 
of 1832. "The Death of CEnone," a continuation 
of the same tale, gives the title to his very last. It is 
only necessary to mention "Ulysses," "Tithonus," 
"Lucretius," "Tiresias." While at Cambridge, he 
came under the influence of Theocritus, as Stedman 
has shown; and the Sicilian muse inspired his "Eng- 
lish Idylls," the poems of 1842, which established 
his rank as a poet. Tennyson's classicism is very dif- 
ferent from the classicism of Pope on the one hand, 
and the classicism of Keats, Morris, and Swinburne 
on the other. Pope and his school had zeal without 
knowledge; they had the misfortune to live before 
Winckelmann. Keats by instinct and sympathy, 
Morris and Swinburne through study and sympathy, 
attain to an understanding of Hellenic literature and 
life. Tennyson's sympathy is founded on scholarship, 
but he is not content merely to reproduce Hellenic 
forms, as Swinburne does in "Atalanta in Calydon," 



io 4 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

or merely to interpret in re-telling, an old-world 
wonder-tale, as Keats does in "Hyperion," or as 
Morris does in "Atalanta's Race." His practice is 
to take the mould of the old mythus and fill it with 
new metal of his own fusing. If Keats or Swinburne 
had written "GEnone," they would have given more 
"Judgment of Paris" pictures, glowing with splendid 
colour. Tennyson does not deny us beauty, or har- 
mony, or form, or vivid hue, but his "CEnone" is in 
its last significance "a criticism of life." It exists, 
one might almost say, for the sake of the ideal form- 
ulated by Pallas — 

Self -reverence, self-knowledge, self-control, 
These three alone lead life to sovereign power. 

This modernity is, I believe, the distinctive note of 
all his classical poetry. 

Cambridge and the classics seem to be the chief 
influences in developing Tennyson's genius, in bring- 
ing out the artist that was in him. A third influence 
was his extraordinary habit of self-criticism, a bent 
of mind rarely found united with the artistic temper- 
ament. The personality of Tennyson is a curious 
union of diverse qualities. A mystic, a dreamer, who 
could, by repeating his own name as a sort of incan- 
tation, put himself into the ecstatic state, he had a 
large fund of English common sense, driving shrewd 
bargains with his booksellers and thriftily gaining 



TENNYSON AS ARTIST 105 

houses and lands. He was both a critic and a creator, 
and his critical faculty, strong as it was, never over- 
came or crippled his creative power. In regard to 
his own work, he was both markedly sensitive and 
preeminently sane. Black-blooded, as he said him- 
self, like all the Tennysons, he never forgot or for 
gave an adverse criticism; but he had humour and a 
power of detachment. He was too wise to think that 
he could ever have done with learning, and he was 
willing to learn even from unfriendly critics. When 
"Scorpion" Lockhart stung him to the quick in the 
"Quarterly," or "musty Christopher" bludgeoned 
him in "Blackwood's," he could not help feeling 
hurt, but neither could he help seeing whatever jus- 
tice was mingled with the abuse. In subsequent 
editions, he suppressed poems that they hit hardest, 
and removed or modified phrases that they ridiculed. 
Among poets, Tennyson stands alone in this peculiar 
deference to the opinions of others, and this habit 
of profiting by criticism, while resenting it. Most 
poets take Pilate's attitude, "What I have written, 
I have written." 

But Tennyson was his own best critic. He had 
keener eyes for flaws in his work then the Lockharts 
and the Wilsons, and a deeper interest in removing 
them. Unweariedly he labours onwards to the goal 
he has set before himself, — perfection. He sup- 



106 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

presses whole poems, parts of poems, or lines, or 
stanzas. At need he enlarges a poem. Constantly he 
modifies words and phrases. It would be difficult to 
point to a single poem that has not undergone correc- 
tion since its first publication. The "Memoir" 
showed how much good verse he never published, 
consistently with his praise of the poet, — 

The worst he kept, the best he gave. 

And Tennyson's "worst" is enough to make the rep- 
utation of a respectable minor poet. One of his firm- 
est poetic principles was a horror of "long-backed" 
poems, against which he warned his friend Browning 
in vain. With Poe, he would almost consider "long 
poem," a contradiction in terms; and with classic 
Gray, he is capable of sacrificing excellent verses for 
no other reason than that they would draw out the 
linked sweetness beyond appointed bounds. He held 
that a small vessel, built on fine lines, is likely to 
float farther down the stream of time than a big raft. 
The student of Tennyson's art will be rewarded by 
comparing the volumes of 1830 and 1832 with the 
first volume of 1842. The first two were carefully 
winnowed for the best; and these were in some cases 
practically rewritten to form volume one of "English 
Idylls." The second contained only new poems. 
These poems established his reputation; and Fitz- 



TENNYSON AS ARTIST 107 

Gerald maintained to the end, that they were never 
surpassed by any later masterpieces. 

From the opposite practice he was not averse, 
when it was necessary in the interests of truth and of 
completeness. "Maud," for instance, was increased 
by the addition of two poems, sections xix and xxv, 
or one hundred and twelve lines altogether. The gain 
in clearness is most marked. Again, the amplifica- 
tion of the "Idylls of the King," notably of "Geraint 
and Enid" into two parts, and of the original "Morte 
d'Arthur" into "The Passing of Arthur," to form a 
pendant for "The Coming of Arthur" rounds out the 
epic and assists the allegory. 

It was in verbal changes, however, that his critical 
faculty was chiefly exerted. As a boy, Horace was 
in his own phrase "thoroughly drummed" into him, 
.and, though he did not attain early to a full apprecia- 
tion of the Augustan's peculiar excellences, such 
training could hardly fail to react upon his own style, 
and direct his attention to the importance of nicety 
of phrase and melody of verse. In "our harsh, grunt- 
ing, Northern guttural," he had much more stubborn 
material to work upon than the sonorous Latin; but 
he triumphed. He revealed latent beauties in our 
tongue, unknown and unsuspected. One principle 
was what he called "kicking the geese out of the boat," 
getting rid of the sibilants. He would ridicule the 



108 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

first line of "The Rape of the Lock" for its cumulation 
of hissing sounds. To make his English sweet upon 
the tongue was one of his first concerns. He succeeded, 
and he showed our language to be a richer, sweeter 
instrument of expression, with greater compass than 
had been thought possible before he revealed his 
mastery over it. In all his processes of correcting, 
polishing, emending expression, his one aim is the at- 
tainment of greater accuracy, in one word, truth. A 
characteristic anecdote is recorded in the "Memoir." 
"My father was vexed that he had written, 'two and 
thirty years ago,' in his 'AH along the Valley,' instead 
of, 'one and thirty years ago,' and as late as 1892 
wished to alter it since he hated inaccuracy. I per- 
suaded him to let his first reading stand, for the public 
had learnt to love the poem in its present form; and 
besides 'two and thirty' was more melodious." Pol- 
ish for the sake of mere smoothness was repellent to 
his large, sincere nature; and he understood the art 
of concealing his art. Before him, only Wordsworth 
had treated his printed works in so rude a fashion; 
but Wordsworth changes sometimes for the worse. 
It is hardly too much to say that Tennyson's changes 
are invariably improvements. 

It seems then permissible to refer the peculiar 
development of Tennyson's genius to three causes; 
first, his education in the classics at home, at college, 



TENNYSON AS ARTIST 109 

and throughout his after life as a means of self- 
culture; second, the strong stimulus to mind and spirit 
afforded by the life and the companionships of the 
university; and third, the habit of self-criticism, 
which made the poet the most severe judge of his 
own work. 

IV 

The popularity of an author is of course no criterion 
of merit. Matthew Arnold was unpopular, while 
forty editions of Martin Farquhar Tupper were 
eagerly devoured by an admiring public. Popularity 
may be the stamp of inferiority. Every generation 
has its widely read, immortal novelist, who is speedily 
forgotten by the next. Mr. Hall Caine and Miss 
Marie Corelli command audiences to-day which are 
denied to Meredith and Hardy. It may be doubted 
whether the masterpieces of Hawthorne ever were 
able to compete in point of sales with the novels of 
"a person named Roe." Popularity may be imme- 
diate and well deserved, as in the case of Scott, 
Byron, and Dickens, because there is in them an ap- 
peal to those passions that are universal in all men; 
or it may be slow and gradual, as in the case of Words- 
worth and Tennyson. Few will quarrel with Ruskin's 
account of how reputation comes to all that is highest 
in art and literature. "It is an insult to what is 



no LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

really great in either to suppose that it in any way 
addresses itself to mean or uncultivated faculties." 
The question what is really high in art is not decided 
by the multitude, but for the multitude, — "decided 
at first by a few; by fewer as the merits of a work are 
of a higher order. From these few the decision is 
communicated to the number next below them in 
rank of mind, and by these again to a wider and lower 
circle; each rank being so far cognizant of the superi- 
ority of that above it, as to receive its decision with 
respect; until, in process of time, the right and con- 
sistent opinion is communicated to all, and held by 
all as a matter of faith, the more positively in pro- 
portion as the grounds of it are less perceived." This 
explanation certainly applies to Tennyson. At first 
he was discouraged by the unsympathetic reception 
of his works, the ridicule of the "Quarterly" and 
"Blackwood's" and "half resolved to live abroad in 
Jersey, in the South of France, or Italy. He was so 
far persuaded that the English people would never 
care for his poetry, that, had it not been for the in- 
tervention of his friends, he declared it not unlikely 
that, after the death of Hallam, he would not have 
continued to write." He was, however, a man "of 
long enduring hopes;" he was able to wait, and fame 
came to him at last. 
The undoubted fact of Tennyson's long continued 



TENNYSON AS ARTIST in 

popularity is rather strange. There are reasons why 
his poetry should not be popular. Scott and Byron 
were popular because they had a story to tell and told 
it with vigour and spirit: but Tennyson has little or 
no epic interest, especially in his earliest work: the 
interest is lyric and therefore less wide in its appeal. 
Again, he does not relate himself to common life as 
Wordsworth does; nor does he, like Shelley, espouse 
the people's cause. His attitude is that of the intel- 
lectual aristocrat, aloof, fastidious, dignified. He is 
essentially a local and an English poet. Some of his 
most thoroughly characteristic lines are, — 

The noblest men methinks are bred 
Of ours the Saxo-Norman race. 

Germany, Italy, the United States do not exist in 
his verse. He evinces no sympathy with the great 
struggles of these nationalities toward the assertion 
of their natural rights, even for the right to exist. 
The Great Republic is rent asunder by four years of 
terrific conflict, and Tennyson has no word of cheer 
for either side. But democratic America welcomed 
and read his poems with as much enthusiasm as his 
own countrymen. 

Why, in spite of these apparent drawbacks, Tenny- 
son was and has remained, and, no doubt, will long 
remain, popular, is now to be considered. A defini- 
tion of poetry that finds universal acceptance is still 



ii2 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

to seek. It may be "a criticism of life," or, "the sug- 
gestion by the imagination of noble grounds for the 
noble emotions," or any other one of the hundred 
that the wit of man has framed; but, whatever it in- 
cludes or omits, poetry must possess two things — 
beauty and harmony. Beauty and harmony, har- 
mony and beauty — these are the two principles 
without which poetry cannot exist; these are the 
pillars of the poets' universe. Poetry, to be poetry, 
must possess harmony and beauty; and harmony and 
beauty inform the poetry of Tennyson and are the 
law of its being. 

Literature and poetry, especially lyric poetry, have 
the most ancient associations with music; and the 
further poetry strays from music, the less poetic it 
becomes. Many poets have failed or come short 
because they failed to understand this basal princi- 
ple, or else deliberately departed from it. Words- 
worth was in feeling a rustic, near the ground, in 
close touch with husbandman and shepherd, but his 
verse is repressed and austere and his range is limited. 
He is not read by workmen as Burns is read. Carducci 
calls himself a plebeian, but he is an aristocrat when 
he writes "Odi Barbare," which only the few can 
understand and delight in. Whitman, who made 
democracy a religion, and proved his faith by his 
works in the Washington hospitals, chanted his swing- 



TENNYSON AS ARTIST 113 

ing paeans of democracy for the benefit of a group of 
London decadents and scanty coteries of illuminati 
in Boston and New York. They failed, but Tennyson 
succeeded, because, following the bent of his genius, 
he set himself humbly to obey eternal and unchanging 
law, for the principle of beauty inheres as firmly in 
the universe as the law of gravitation. Nobility of 
thought, beauty of vision, harmony of word and phrase 
and stanza, just proportion in the whole, — at these 
Tennyson aims, and to these he succeeds in attaining. 
His first appeal is to the ear; his verse wins its way 
as music does, the most democratic of all the fine arts, 
and the most masterful in its power to stir the human 
heart. The poet's limitations, his narrow outlook, 
his imperfect sympathies matter not. Music speaks 
a universal language ; and the poetry that comes near- 
est to music is surest to reach the widest audience. 
Ian Maclaren's story of the Scottish peasant who knew 
her "In Memoriam" by heart is no mere fancy. No 
more beautiful illustration of the power of literature 
to soothe and cheer is to be found anywhere than the 
anecdote Mrs. Gaskell tells in the first volume of that 
treasure-house of noble thoughts, the "Memoir." 
"Samuel Bamford is a great, gaunt, stalwart Lan- 
cashire man, formerly hand-loom weaver, author of 
'Life of a Radical,' age nearly seventy, and living 
in that state that is exactly decent poverty with his 



ii 4 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

neat little apple-faced wife. They have lost their only 
child. Bamford is the most hearty (and it 's saying 
a good deal) admirer of Tennyson I know. You know 
I dislike recitations exceedingly, but he repeats some 
of Tennyson's poems in so rapt and yet so simple a 
manner, utterly forgetting that anyone is by, in the 
delight of the music and the exquisite thoughts, that 
one can't help liking to hear him. He does not care 
one jot whether people like him or not in his own in- 
tense enjoyment. He says when he lies awake at 
night, as in his old age he often does, and gets sadly 
thinking of the days that are gone when his child was 
alive, he soothes himself by repeating Tennyson's 
poems." It would seem that poetry can be an anodyne 
for old age, sad thoughts, bereavement. The child- 
less father soothes himself by repeating Tennyson's 
poems. "He does not care whether people like him 
or not in his own intense enjoyment." Samuel Bam- 
ford, old hand-loom weaver, makes Plato's statement 
credible, that the rhapsodists reciting Homer fell 
down fainting in their ecstasies. 

Though subject to certain inevitable fluctuations, 
Tennyson's fame was great and constant. He re- 
tained the praise of the judicious, while he won the 
suffrages of the multitude. The greatest and wisest 
and best of two generations came under his spell. 
Few poets have been more heartily acclaimed by 



TENNYSON AS ARTIST 115 

fellow poets. Browning's dedication of his own 
selected poems is typical of the general esteem — 

TO ALFRED TENNYSON, 

IN POETRY, ILLUSTRIOUS AND CONSUMMATE, 

IN FRIENDSHIP, NOBLE AND SINCERE. 

In his majestic old age, he became an object of ven- 
eration, Merlin the seer. Tennyson was an impe- 
rialist, that is, an Englishman impressed with the 
value of the new nations, the dominions over seas, 
and the necessity of keeping the empire one. In 
the last year of his life, he came into touch with the 
imperialist poet of the new school. He praised, too, 
Mr. Rudyard Kipling's "English Flag," and Kip- 
ling's answer to his letter of commendation gave 
him pleasure: "When the private in the ranks is 
praised by the general, he cannot presume to thank 
him, but he fights the better the next day." A list 
of those who have praised his work would include 
the best minds on both sides of the Atlantic. Long- 
fellow spoke for America in the Christmas sonnet, 
which he wrote and sent in 1877, — 

in sign 
Of homage to the mastery which is thine 
In English song, — 

But Tennyson impressed the English-speaking world 
of his time not alone directly by the impact of his 



n6 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

poetry on the leaders of thought, he exerted a great 
secondary influence through his hosts of imitators. 
The parallel between Tennyson and Pope has been 
sometimes drawn, and not unwisely. Both set be- 
fore them very definite ideals of technique. Pope's 
was "correctness;" Tennyson's was brevity, just 
proportion and finish. Their aims have very much 
in common. Each would understand the other when 
he spoke 

Of charm, and lucid order and the labour of the file. 

Both became supreme verbal artists, and verbal 
artistry is no slight thing. To think of either Pope 
or Tennyson merely as artificers of word mosaics, 
as cunning jewellers of phrases is to wrong them. 
Their search for the exact word was really a search 
for the idea. Both are poets' poets, in the sense that 
their literary influence is supreme in their centuries. 
Both set the tune for their age. The manner of 
Pope prevailed in the eighteenth century and the 
manner of Tennyson prevailed in the nineteenth. 
Arnold, William Morris, Rossetti would have written 
in another way except for Tennyson. Swinburne, 
the greatest of them all, simply carries Tennyson's 
mastery of words one stage further, and represents, 
perhaps, the utmost possibilities in sweetening the 
English tongue. The recognition of Tennyson's 



TENNYSON AS ARTIST 117 

influence upon the minor verse of the last half cen- 
tury has long been a commonplace of the reviewer. 

It was by no condescension to the taste of the 
groundlings, that Tennyson won his popularity. He 
takes high ground, and he calls us up to it. Al- 
though first and foremost an artist, he did not rest 
in a worship of beauty. He would not agree with 
Keats that Beauty is Truth and Truth is Beauty, 
that this is all we know on earth and all we need to 
know. He left the maxim, "Art for Art's sake," to 
be invented by his followers. He knew, even as a 
youth at college, that the nature of man cannot 
wholly take refuge in Art. He knew that other things 
must have their share. His own avowed theory of 
his art is that 

Beauty, Good, and Knowledge are three sisters 

That dote upon each other — 

And never can be sunder'd without tears. 

Tennyson's was essentially a reverent, a religious 
nature. His tendency to brood on the riddle of the 
painful earth is seen clearly even in his earliest 
poems, and is thoroughly in accord with the strong 
religious fibre of the English people. It was an Eng- 
lish naturalist who, in the mid-nineteenth century, 
turned the current of the world's thought. Darwin 
and his theory of evolution gave a new impetus and 
direction to the conceptions of man, life, and the 



n8 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

universe. One immediate result was the shattering 
of old beliefs. No one felt the conflict between the 
old faith and the new knowledge more keenly than 
Tennyson, and no one has represented that conflict 
more powerfully than he has in "In Memoriam." 
Though often cast down in the struggle, faith emerges 
victorious. Along with Carlyle and Ruskin, Tenny- 
son has helped to shape some sort of via media be- 
tween science and religion. Tennyson is akin to 
the young Milton who sang the praise of purity in 
"Comus," and the Spenser who intended by "The 
Fairy Queen" to fashion a gentleman or noble per- 
son in virtuous and gentle discipline. 

"And your experience had made you sad," Rosa- 
lind might say to Tennyson as to the melancholy 
Jaques. He is often hastily described as a pessimist 
and he certainly chose a mournful muse. His great 
poem is an elegy, an inscription on a tomb, a reso- 
lute facing of the great issues raised by the death of 
his friend. Without being morbid, he is impressed 
with the tragedy of life and the fact of death. Even 
in the "Poems by Two Brothers" he is at times 
sad as night. "Oriana," "The Lady of Shalott," 
"Maud," "Aylmer's Field," "Enoch Arden," "The 
Idylls of the King," are all tragic. Disappointed 
love is the theme of "Locksley Hall," the two 
"Marianas," "Dora," "Love and Duty," to men- 



TENNYSON AS ARTIST 119 

tion only a few of his earlier poems. The beauty of 
the form makes us forget the eternal note of sadness 
in them all. Tennyson's sadness is the melancholy 
of the North, which is quite compatible with a gift 
of humour. His humour is deep and rich, if rather 
quiet, as in the "Northern Farmers," and is a de- 
velopment of later life. He speaks of his college 
days as those "dawn golden times," and his first 
two volumes do reflect the splendour of the sunrise: 
but though afterwards he can write fanciful medley 
like "The Princess," or the graceful fairy-tale like 
"The Day-Dream, " the first vision has passed away 
for ever. To realize the general sadness of tone in 
Tennyson, a short dip into Browning is necessary, 
some brief contact with his spirits, his unbounded 
cheerfulness, his robust assertion that God's in His 
Heaven. 

The nineteenth century is now definitely behind us, 
a closed chapter in the history of human progress. 
It is too soon to define it, as we can define the eight- 
eenth century; for we feel ourselves part of it still. 
It was a practical, commercial, industrial age, and 
yet it was an age of poets. Never before did poets 
wield such an influence. Scott, Byron, Wordsworth 
did in a very real sense sway the hearts and minds 
of men. Byron's influence in particular extended 
far beyond his native land; his poetry was a genuine 



i2o LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

call to freedom, an inspiration to noble conspirators 
all over Europe; and its power is by no means 
exhausted yet. The influence of Tennyson has been 
more restricted to that great section of the human 
race whose mother-tongue is English. For two gen- 
erations he was their favourite poet. He was un- 
doubtedly the poet of his age, and the fact of his pop- 
ularity is nattering to the age. Appreciation means 
sympathy. As Tennyson was widely read and 
enthusiastically admired by all classes of minds in 
his time, he is in a way the mirror of his century. 
Hence it is not an unfair inference that very many 
men and women, his contemporaries, were sensitive 
to beauty in all its forms, possessed broad culture 
and thorough refinement, lived on the moral up- 
lands, and envisaged with earnestness the tremen- 
dous riddles of human life and destiny. For poetry 
is not an amusement, a recreation. It is truly a 
"criticism of life." We turn to our poets instinc- 
tively for guidance in matters of faith. Not in vain 
do we come to Tennyson. He may not offer a very 
certain hope, but he does 

Teach high faith and honourable words 
And courtliness and the desire of fame 
And love of truth — . 



BROWNING'S WOMEN — THE 
SURFACE 



BROWNING'S WOMEN — THE 
SURFACE 

THE other day, some one praised Hogarth as a 
portrayer of beautiful women, and straight- 
way there arose a protest. To the protestants, 
Hogarth meant chiefly "The Rake's Progress," 
"Gin Lane," "The Lessons in Cruelty"; and they 
forgot the pretty face of the country clergyman's 
daughter in the other "Progress," the charm of her 
mischievous smile, and her sister, the actress "Diana," 
anything but a prudish goddess, in the barn turned 
greenroom, ringed by the unappreciative onlookers. 
Browning is not exactly Hogarth in verse, but he is 
like the artist in one respect, that the popular ver- 
dict puts certain qualities of both in the forefront, 
to the dimming of others, perhaps of equal impor- 
tance. Browning, when not set down as flatly in- 
comprehensible, is a metaphysician, or a philosopher, 
or an artist in the grotesque, — damning phrases 
all. He [is known as the author of "Sordello," as 
the tracker of men's secret souls through the end- 
less mazes of personality, as the interpreter of the 

ugliness of nature, as in "Childe Roland"; of the 

123 



i2 4 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

ugliness of the stunted savage mind, as in "Caliban"; 
of the ugliness of moral deformity, as in "Sludge," 
"Guido," and "Blougram." But could he image 
beauty? Could he deal with the poet's chief theme, 
the crowning splendour of this world of flowers, the 
loveliness of women? Could he, from the scattered 
vexing hints the real supplies, create ideal forms that 
will haunt the imagination of the world with their 
supernal, maddening, unattainable charm? Let me 
answer my own questions. I believe that no poet 
has ever portrayed the eternal woman in the in- 
tensity and variety of her great gift, beauty, as well 
as Robert Browning. 

No one doubts that Browning could depict the 
essential woman, — the soul of her. Sometimes, 
in this task he seems to despise all external aids. 
The unnamed Brinvilliers of "The Laboratory" is 
a little woman, a "minion," in contrast with the 
great regal creature she hates to the death; that 
glorious peasant girl who rescued the revolutionist 
from the dry old aqueduct is barefoot; Count Gis- 
mond's wife is "beauteous," as befits the queen of 
the tourney; but description could not well be 
vaguer. With hardly a word as to their outward 
favour, the poet sets these women before us, pal- 
pitating with life in every fibre of their being. In 
six lines of "De Gustibus," he will give you a com- 



BROWNING'S WOMEN 125 

plete character, the barefoot Neapolitan girl with 
her armful of fruit, her hatred of the Bourbon despot, 
and patriotic love for the wouldbe assassin. The 
fierce young thing is there in those six lines, soul 
and body. You seem to see her black eyes flash, 
when "she hopes they have not caught the felons." 
With more elaborated, full-length portraits of char- 
acter, Pippa, Balaustion, and that "miracle of 
women," Pompilia, we are so lost in admiration 
of their innocent girlishness, or patriotic fervour, or 
divine purity of soul, that we hardly think of em- 
bodying such quintessence of spirit in any human 
form. But Browning did not despise form, any more 
than Fra Lippo Lippi, whose sentiment is the poet's 

own, — 

If you get simple beauty and nought else, 
You get about the best thing God invents. 

Tennyson is famous for his dream of fair women, 
"the far-renowned brides of ancient song." His 
case is typical. Every poet, to be a poet, must have 
the same vision. Browning, too, has his dream, 
but it is grander, far more comprehensive than that 
of his brother Olympian. Before his eyes come not 
only the queens of the race, Helen, Cleopatra, Joan 
the Maid, but all beautiful women, past, present, 
and to be. In numbers past all counting, like the 
doves to their windows, like the multitudes of souls 



126 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

driven by the fierce wind in the great outer circle of 
Hell, Browning sees the loveliest of all time circling 
the mystic rose-tree, the rose that has ever been the 
symbol of festival, of joy, of love. 

I dream of a red-rose tree, 

Round and round, like a dance of snow 
In a dazzling drift, as its guardians, go 
Floating the women faded for ages, 
Sculptured in stone, on the poet's pages. 
Then follow women fresh and gay, 
Living and loving and loved to-day. 
Last, in the rear, flee the multitude of maidens 
Beauties yet unborn. And all to one cadence 
They circle their rose on my rose-tree. 

Spenser saw his lady in a mood of spring, crowned 
and throned, and all about her, — 

An hundred naked maidens lily white, 

All raunged in a ring and dauncing with delight. 

But the dance Browning saw has not even the airy 
footing to be found in Fairy Land ; it is out of Space 
and out of Time. Some one gave his wife, when 
they were first married, a handful of roses, in Florence. 
The petals are dead and dry long since, but the or- 
dered words they inspired remain, fragrant and full 
of colour. Nothing could be more fitting than the 
transmutation of flowers into verse. From the end- 



BROWNING'S WOMEN 127 

less procession they conjured up, the poet by his art 
has called out this one and that, and made it pos- 
sible for us to see her too. 

If he was not merely repeating a commonplace, 
the apostle was, for the moment, a poet and a man 
of the world, when he wrote that a woman's glory 
is her hair. It is undoubtedly the frame of all the 
other glories, their indispensable background; and 
this crowning mercy to mankind seems to have en- 
chained Browning's gaze most closely. In one case, 
at least, it is the woman's only beauty; it was all the 
dower Mother Nature gave the frail, white-faced 
girl of Pornic, with her strange, sordid, miser pas- 
sion. In its rich abundance, silky texture, and play 
of golden light, there was promise of soul and face 
and body in keeping; but the promise was broken 
in the tenuous frame and the crippled spirit. 

But she had her great gold hair 

Hair, such a wonder of flix and floss, 

Freshness and fragrance — floods of it too! 

Gold, did I say? Nay, gold's mere dross; 
Here Life smiled, "Think what I meant to do." 

And love sighed, "Fancy my loss!" 

In death, her hair is almost sufficient shroud. 

For indeed the hair was to wonder at, 
As it spread — not flowing free, 



128 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

But curled around her brow, like a crown, 
And coiled beside her cheeks like a cap, 

And calmed about her neck — ay, down 
To her breast, pressed flat, without a gap 

I' the gold, it reached her gown. 



Mildred Tresham is another golden-haired beauty, 
but as full of warm young life, as the Pornic miser 
was devoid of it. Of the age of Juliet, and Miranda, 
and Perdita, she deserves admittance to the fellow- 
ship of these three Graces, by virtue of her physical 
beauty. To her, as to nearly all Browning's women, 
might be affixed the old ballad tag, "ladye bright." 
"Oh, she doth teach the torches to burn bright," 
bursts forth Romeo, at the first glimpse of the peer- 
less Juliet, that "Beauty for earth too rich, for use 
too dear." With this radiant loveliness, dazzling, 
eye-striking, Mildred Tresham is endowed; for there 
is sometimes seen a kind of face that no more permits 
a steady gaze upon it than does the sun. Hers is a 
wealth of charms. "How little God forgot in making 
her!" as the admiring German verse has it. She is a 
child in years, the budding rose, and not the rose 
full-blown, and not yet dimmed by the dust of the 
world. Faithful heart and wonderful blue eyes, 
which the proverb couples not unwisely, and hair to 
net the coldest lover's fancy, — these the poet cele- 
brates in the famous serenade. 



BROWNING'S WOMEN 129 

And her eyes are dark and humid, like the depth on depth of 
lustre 

Hid i' the harebell, while her tresses, sunnier than the wild- 
grape cluster, 

Gush in golden-tinted plenty down her neck's rose-misted 
marble. 

The Lady of the Gondola, another of "Cupid's 
saints," has also golden hair. When her lover saw 
her first, leaning out over the balcony of her palace, 
to catch her truant bird, — 

the round smooth cord of gold, 
This coiled hair on your head, unrolled. 
Fell down you like a gorgeous snake 
The Roman girls were wont, of old, 
When Rome there was, for coolness' sake 
To let lie curling o'er their bosoms. 

The "Incident" has meaning that does not lie on 
the surface; for the solution of the hair from its de- 
corum is always a subtle symbol of self-surrender. 
This is the same hair from which the lady flung away 
the jewel, and bound it with a water weed, since her 
lover praised it; the same "beauteous" hair he 
praised again in his death agony and feared his 
blood would hurt. 

In this lovely company is also Porphyria, the high- 
born dame, who was so long doubtful of her own 
heart, and at last gave all for love, and put herself 
too trustingly within her lover's power. She came 



i 3 o LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

to him through the night and the rain, and her re- 
ward was death. The madman strangled her in his 
ecstasy of possession; but her beauty was not marred; 
even then the laughing blue eye was free from all 
blemish, and the long yellow hair made a gorgeous 
coil three times around the bare little neck. 

As intense and clear-shining, in her dark way, as 
these glowing sun-coloured women in theirs, is the 
Riccardi's bride, the new-made wife who loved the 
duke, but wanted will to sin the whole sin out. The 
contrast between her black hair and pale face etches 
her upon the memory. Black-haired and pale- 
faced, — but that is saying nothing. Browning 
deepens his shadows and heightens his lights, until 
it would, indeed, be a dull mind that took no impress 
from the image presented. The black hair has a 
vitality of its own, rolling heavily in the fulness of 
its strength, like a charger's mane. The massive 
waves of it are like carven coal against the spiritual 
purity of her white brow. But black as her locks 
are, they cannot vie with the black fire of her un- 
fathomable eyes. 

Hair in heaps lay heavily 

Over a pale brow spirit — pure — 

Carved like the heart of a coal-black tree, 

Crisped like a war steed's encolure — 
And vainly sought to dissemble her eyes 
Of the blackest black our eyes endure. 



BROWNING'S WOMEN 131 

Browning seems to share the general preference for 
fair hair. The lover who is travelling to meet his 
lady and will see her again, "In Three Days" revels 
in thought with her wonderful curls. He seems to 
leave the colour undecided, but still the line "As 
early Art embrowns the gold" could hardly apply 
to dark hair! Pompilia we remember best by the 
phrase, "A lady young, tall, beautiful, and sad"; 
but her champion, who speaks for half Rome, lets us 
know how Cavalier Carlo Maratta the painter raved 
about her face, "shaped like a peacock's egg" and 

that pair of eyes, that pendent hair 
Black this and black the other. 

Failing Signor Carlo's sketch, I should like to give 
Pompilia the lovely features of that other humble 
Italian girl, saint and martyr, Ida, as immortalized 
by " Francesca's " pen and pencil. After all, there is 
not so much to be said about black hair. Black is 
black, but there are many shades of gold. For in- 
stance, that soulless "Pretty Woman," "all the face 
composed of flowers," has hair unique in its beauty. 
Here is the inventory of her charms : — 

That fawn-skin dappled hair of hers, 

And the blue eye, 

Dear and dewy, 
And that infantine fresh air of hers! 



The dangerous, grown-up baby 



i 3 2 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

It must not be forgotten that Browning was an 
artist, with the artist's sensitiveness to all manifesta- 
tions of beauty. He understands the maxim, "peu 
de moyens, beaucoup d'effet." The girl waiting for 
her shepherd at twilight in the ruined tower, where 
once the great mother-city stood, has "eager eyes and 
yellow hair." Colombe is a princess regnant, less by 
birth than by her soul; she is, besides, "a young maid 
with the bluest eyes." Before she enters the audience- 
chamber on her fateful birthday, she is "wreathing 
her hair, a song between her lips," in happy inno- 
cence of the sorrow and joy awaiting her beyond the 
portal. The mistress of the Bishop is, to the dying 
sinner, "your tall pale mother with her talking eyes." 
Gandolf and he had contended for her, as well as for 
the choicest tombs in St. Praxed's church. "And 
still he envied me, so fair was she." The poet seems 
to convey that she was no wanton like Ottima; she 
was the mother of sons, and her "talking eyes" told 
tales of sorrow. In all three cases how few are the 
words that body forth these fair women! 

Besides all these free, dashing sketches, he has his 
finished portraits at full length. 

The Venetian lady of the "Toccata" is one of 
Titian's own. She and her cavalier have stepped 
apart from the dancers; they have even left off their 
lover's talk to listen to Ser Baldassare Galuppi's 



BROWNING'S WOMEN 133 

music as he plays his "touch-pieces" at the clavi- 
chord. The gallant is trifling with his sword-hilt; the 
lady is in a reverie; she has taken off her black- velvet 
mask and set her teeth lightly in the edge of it. The 
master's music has, for a wonder, made her think. 
We see the pair together, the fixed eyes of both are 
full of new thoughts. Such a lady! 

cheeks so round, and lips so red, — 
On her neck the small face buoyant, like the bell-flower on its 

bed, 
O'er the breast's superb abundance, where a man might base 

his head. 

The young Duchess of Ferrara is also a full-length 
portrait. The sketch in oils Fra Pandolf painted 
swiftly in a day is one of the ducal connoisseur's chief 
rarities. It must have been the painter's masterpiece, 
for the lady looks as if she were alive, and the well- 
remembered spot of joy is in the fresh young cheek. 
The duke with his cold cruelty murdered the living 
woman, but he treasured the painted image of her. 
There is the rounded arm the painter complimented, 
and the faint flush of colour along her throat that was 
his despair. He triumphed over a greater difficulty, 
however; he transferred to canvas "the depth and 
passion of that earnest glance." The question, "Dark 
or fair?" is not answered, but the details given define 
an individual not to be confused with any other of 



134 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

Browning's creations. More distinctly marked still 
are the features of the one in "Time's Revenges." 
At least they seem so, until we find only one peculiar- 
ity spoken of. Nothing is told of her eyes or her hair, 
only how the shadows shift and change about her 
lips. For the poet-lover this is an obsession. Why is 
this individual trait put in the forefront of the de- 
scription? For the best of reasons. The sweetest 
kisses, sings the longing girl to Princess Ida, are 
feigned by hopeless fancy on lips that are for others. 
This is the sorrow of our poet in his freezing garret. 
The Face haunts him, grows out upon him from the 
bare walls wherever he looks. 

So is my spirit, as flesh with sin, 
Filled full, eaten out and in 
With the face of her, the eyes of her, 
The lips, the little chin, the stir 
Of shadow round her mouth — 

One fancies her a Titania, like the Duchess who fled 
with the gipsy. 

I have seen a white crane bigger. 

She cannot choose but be little. The little women are 
the empresses of the world and trample on the hearts 
of men. She was no doubt a "minion" like the court 
lady in "The Laboratory," fond of dancing like her 
also, and dancing well. No doubt she went to the 



BROWNING'S WOMEN 135 

famous ball, and danced like a feather in the wind, 
while her lover ate out his heart in his lonely attic. 
Lucrezia, the "serpentining beauty, rounds on 
rounds," the wife of Andrea del Sarto, is fully de- 
scribed, but Browning has many portraits to study. 
The face of Edith, the lost love in "Too Late," is so 
unusual that it seems to be drawn direct from the 
living model : — 

I liked the way you had with your curls 

Wound to a ball in a net behind : 
Your cheek was chaste as a quaker -girl's, 

And your mouth — there was never to my mind, 
Such a funny mouth, for it would not shut; 

And the dented chin, too, — what a chin! 
There were certain ways when you spoke, some words 

That you know you never could pronounce: 
You were thin, however; like a bird's 

Your hand seemed — some would say, the pounce 
Of a scaly -footed hawk — all but ! 

The world was right when it called you thin. 

This is a characteristic piece of Browningesque au- 
dacity. The women of most poets are of a regular 
beauty hard to define. How shadowy is Maud, for 
instance, in spite of the "little head running over 
with curls," the feet "like sunny gems," the "exqui- 
site voice," beside this bundle of unclassical, fascinat- 
ing irregularities! The formation that keeps the lips 
apart, showing a white tooth or two, makes a mouth 
that is very ready to smile and to speak impulsively. 



136 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

Browning's apprenticeship to painting and sculpture 
taught what details to seize on and what to reject. 

Evelyn Hope is as lovely as her musical name. 
Although we only see her dead in her maiden cham- 
ber, as we watch for an hour with her lover, she seems 
to be the spirit of youth. Over her loveliness death 
has no power. She is asleep, but she will awake, 
and remember and understand. The gods loved her 
and made her of "spirit, fire and dew"; her "hair was 
amber"; her mouth was geranium red; the "sweet 
white brow" remains, and the "sweet cold hand." 
No aura from the tomb breathes through this dark- 
ened room; death is swallowed up, not in victory, for 
there is no struggle, but in the glorious certainty of 
reunion and desire fulfilled. The lover is not the typ- 
ical "man of fifty"; he is the poet, the eternal youth, 
with the heart to adventure worlds beyond the grave; 
the beloved is almost a child. How the poet insists 
upon her youth! The artful threefold repetition of 
one epithet hammers the idea in: — 

There was place and to spare for the frank young smile, 
And the red young mouth, and the hair's young gold. 

Some one, we feel, must have sat for this portrait. 

In one case we are not left to conjecture, for one 
poem was written simply to record the beauty of a 
woman's face. Emily Patmore is a name little known, 



BROWNING'S WOMEN 137 

and yet she was the inspiration of two poets. As was 
fitting, her husband-lover celebrated her soul, and 
Browning the friend devoted himself to the portrayal 
of the outward semblance. "The Angel in the House " 
should have "A Face" for its frontispiece. Now that 
we have Patmore's "Memoirs," with a reproduction 
of Woolner's medallion, we can judge for ourselves 
how well deserved is the praise bestowed upon her, 
and how strangely words, mere words, when rightly 
chosen, can give the effect of picture. The poet's wish 
was realized : — 

If one could have that little head of hers 
Painted upon a background of pale gold, 

Such as the Tuscan's early art prefers! 

No shade encroaching on the matchless mould 

Of those two lips, which should be opening soft 
In the pure profile; not as when she laughs, 

For that spoils all; 

Then her lithe neck, three fingers might surround, 
How it should waver on the pale gold ground 
Up to the fruit-shaped, perfect chin it lifts! 

Browning does not confine himself to the face. 
Like Tennyson, he paints occasionally from the un- 
draped figure, but unlike him, he explains and justi- 
fies his course. In his "parleying" with Francis 
Furini, he sets forward, once and for all, his argu- 
ment, which is the artist's argument. Tennyson does 
not argue, he only paints. "OEnone" is, one might 



i 3 8 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

say, misnamed: it is another "Judgment of Paris," 
the theme of uncounted artists. Tennyson is subtle. 
He draws attention to the spear of Pallas, "Against 
her pearly shoulder leaning cold," to the foot of 
Aphrodite rosy white among the violets, to the super- 
natural flowers and fruits that over-garlanded and 
embowered the scene, until the figures themselves 
seem empty spaces of white canvas waiting to be 
painted in. The three goddesses, the nymph in "Lu- 
cretius," and the witch-woman in "Maeldune," are 
almost the only exceptions to the Tennysonian rule 
of drapery. Browning's treatment of the difficult 
theme is direct, frank, manly, a perfect contrast to 
the mawkishness of Swinburne and his like. Brown- 
ing surpasses them all in sheer intensity and power 
of vision, and in vividness of realization; but it would 
be a sickly spirit, indeed, that his pictures could offend 
or injure. His motive, the right motive, is given in 
"The Lady and the Painter." As might be expected, 
Browning, the original, the innovator, the rebel against 
conventions shakes off such trammels as Early Vic- 
torian prudishness would impose. In "Fifine," he 
discusses at length the relation of the sexes, and illus- 
trates his page with the arch enchantresses of all time, 
Helen and Cleopatra. All down the ages, poets have 
joined the two. Dante saw them both in "La bufera 
infernal" of the second circle: — 



BROWNING'S WOMEN 139 

Poi e Cleopatras lussuriosa. 
Elena vedi, per cui tanto reo 
Tempo si volse. 

Shakespeare couples them in Mercutio's jesting re- 
view of the beauties of all time; and in his "Dream," 
Tennyson again sets these most famous of fair women 
side by side. So does Browning in his marvellous 
stanza xx of "Fifine": — 

See Helen! pushed in front o' the world's worst night and 

storm 
By Lady Venus' hand on shoulder; the sweet form 
Shrinkingly prominent, though mighty, like a moon 
Outbreaking from a cloud. 

This idea of beauty shining forth like the moon out 
of a cloud is elaborated with great charm in "Pan 
and Luna." The rest of the conception is purely 
Homeric. Seeing Helen pass through the street, after 
years of siege, the old men of Troy did not begrudge 
the blood and strength of their city poured out in 
her quarrel. In Browning's phrase, they were magic- 
ally brought to acquiesce in their own ravage. Helen 
is the great lady, not a great wanton, like Cleopatra, 
the type courtezan. Helen shrinks; but not so her 
companion; she knows her power and glories in it. 
Nude though she be, except for her barbaric jewels, 
there is intellect in the poise of the head, and infinite 
allure in the "oblong eye" glancing back to note her 
conquests. 



i 4 o LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

See, Cleopatra! bared, the entire and sinuous wealth 

O' the shining shape; each orb of indolent ripe health 

Captured, just where it finds a fellow orb as fine 

I' the body; traced about by jewels which outline, 

Fire-frame, and keep distinct, perfections — lest they melt 

To soft smooth unity ere half their hold be felt : 

Yet, o'er that white and wonder, a soul's predominance 

I' the head so high and haught — except one thievish glance 

From back of oblong eye, intent to count the slain. 

Sordello's vision of Palma, the nautch in "Natural 
Magic," the bathing nymph in "Francis Furini," and 
especially "Pan and Luna" are also triumphant ex- 
amples of artistry with a right spirit. 

Poetry may be denned as Frauenlob, the praise of 
women. We celebrate them in epic, drama, ode, son- 
net, lyric, but, with such exceptions as Sappho and 
Mrs. Browning, they do not make a return in kind. 
Ruskin is right when he assures us that Shakespeare 
has no heroes, only heroines, and that Dante builds 
up his vision of the Three Worlds from the smile of 
a Florentine maiden. As with the masters of song- 
craft, so with all the guild-brothers, "Beauty draws 
us with a single hair." Browning, too, has come 
under that spell and knows how to lay it on others. 



THIS IS OUR MASTER 



THIS IS OUR MASTER 

UNDERGRADUATES at the University of To- 
ronto have much to be thankful for, now-a- 
days. They are rich in buildings, equipment, and 
courses we only dreamed of in the early eighties; 
and yet we men of an older generation need not 
greatly envy them. We had what they can never 
have, — old Convocation Hall and Young. 

In my time, Convocation Hall was the heart of the 
university life. There we gathered in June for ma- 
triculation, and saw for the first time those other 
youths who were to be our comrades, rivals, or mere 
acquaintances in the new life we were all beginning. 
Four years later, in another June, a sifted remnant 
of us knelt upon the dais, one by one, laid our joined 
hands between the lavender kids of the Chancellor, 
and swore to be his "men," as Hereward swore alle- 
giance to the Conqueror, as Arthur's knights made 
oath to Arthur. Between those two Junes, there 
were many strange chapters written in each life 
history. 

Ruskin tells us that his delight in the famous hall 
of Christ's Church — "The House," as its alumni 

i43 



i 4 4 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

proudly call it — was taken away by the fact that 
weekly examinations were held in it; but I cannot 
regret that ours was put to like ignoble use. There 
is a reason even for examinations, and any one who 
did not write his papers in Hall in the brave days 
of old has missed a great deal. The ritual even for 
"supplemental" was imposing. At the fated hour, 
we sat about the room, each victim at his own altar, 
that queer, little, solid, winged, squat, awkward, 
moveable, desk, that was so hard to get between 
your legs, when suddenly we heard from the back 
of the room the loud command, "Stand up, gentle- 
men!" and we stood to attention, while our stern- 
faced Bedel, a relic of Balaclava, marched in, with 
the mace before the gowned examiner (I wonder if 
there is a mace now-a-days, and a procession). 
Solemnly McKim laid the bauble on the high table; 
the papers were dealt out; we stood trembling until 
they came our way, then seized them and sank down. 
Examiners, we thought, always looked as if they 
regretted, more or less, the performance of their dis- 
agreeable duties. As Keats truly says of them, — 

Half ignorant, they turned an easy wheel, 
That set sharp racks at work, to pinch and peel. 

Generally they had books to read and exhibited a 
supreme indifference to the woes of their unhappy 



THIS IS OUR MASTER 145 

fellow mortals. We used to think that when our 
turn came to be examiners, we would show some 
signs of compassion, or try to make things easier, 
but the point of view shifts insensibly, with time. 
Sometimes a sad examinee sought the high seat to 
ask the throned examiner a futile question; some- 
times a friend of the particular Torquemada visited 
the torture-chamber. Generally he was a recent 
graduate, spruce and trim enough to madden Hot- 
spur, and he sauntered up the aisle with an air of 
convinced superiority to us that made us long for 
his heart's blood. But barring such interruptions, 
it was scratch, scribble, scrawl, without drawing 
breath until the mortal two hours and a half were 
over and all candidates were ready to drop. We 
wrote on a special, thin, square, unruled paper 
which was lavishly dispensed. Surplus sheets were 
annexed by the evil-minded as a lawful perquisite. 
Our Gold Medallist in Philosophy was understood 
to hold a record of eighty-seven of these, on one 
"Honours" examination, fairly covered within the 
stated period. One examiner — long since gone to 
his account — was credited with weighing the merits 
of such papers, quite literally, in a pair of letter- 
scales; but this tale lacks official confirmation. 

Though the hall was associated in our minds 
chiefly with varieties of refined torture, it has pleas- 



146 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

anter uses. And even torture may have its com^ 
pensations. I imagine that when the levers slackened 
for a prisoner on the rack, the words of some old 
text engraven on his dungeon walls, the colours of 
the sunset seen through the barred loopholes would 
fasten themselves upon his mind for the very reason 
that every nerve was crying out in pain. Even in 
the intervals of despair between fits of bad writing 
known only to the non-mathematical struggling with 
cosines and tangents, some of us learned more im- 
portant lessons from the Hall than we got in the 
classroom or the study. 

It taught us, first, the meaning of the builder's 
art. The great, airy, austere chamber was the most 
majestic room I have seen in America. The rugged 
outer wall of grey stone, the smooth and solid inner 
facings, the tall, clear casements at the sides, whereat 
green vine-leaves waved in summer, the high-pitched 
roof with its brown solidity and wealth of grotesque 
carving, — there was one devil with twisted horns, 
that used to waggle his tongue at me, all through 
Second Year Mechanics, — the short pillars with 
every chapiter varied, and, more than all, the great 
painted window above the dais, with its brave, sad 
story — to learn the meaning of these things, apart 
and as a whole, was worth at least one place on the 
Honour List. After knowing only the lath-and- 



THIS IS OUR MASTER 147 

plaster makeshifts, the squalor of our pioneer tent- 
making, which we dare not call architecture, it was 
something to see, to stand in, to frequent daily a 
building that was really built, a fabric that could 
be swept by fire and not a stone fall. Convocation 
Hall supplied the necessary comment to "The Seven 
Lamps." 

It taught us another lesson even more important, 
— the meaning of the word "country." Though 
dumb, it taught us to speak that word plain. There 
in the great painted window, confronting us every 
time we entered the Hall, for whatever purpose, 
were blazoned three names, which no Canadian, and 
certainly no Toronto man, can afford to forget, — 

Mewburn, MacKenzie, Tempest. 

One day in June, 1866, the Queen's Own swung 
through the streets of Toronto, with the traditional 
swagger of the rifle regiment, and in the ranks of 
the University company marched three young men, 
who, a few days later, were brought back in their 
coffins. It was only a little border skirmish and our 
tiny force was mishandled by an auctioneer; but 
Ridgeway means a great deal to us. These Toronto 
undergraduates had not much to give, only the bare 
life, but they gave it freely in the holiest of causes, 
on the frontier of their native land. Let it be re- 



148 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

membered that students of Toronto were the first 
to meet the bullets of the invading Fenian ruffians. 
This lesson of the great window was driven home by 
McCaul's proud, full- voiced Latin: — 

Qui — pro patria pugnantes, — occubuerunt. 

That was one bit of a dead language which one mere 
"Moderns" man brought away with him from the 
'Varsity. 

There were other reasons for feeling gratitude to 
the architect of Convocation Hall. In it some of us 
learned that the music of the acknowledged masters 
was not a thing to be dreaded, but "a kind of in- 
articulate, unfathomable speech, which leads us to 
the edge of the Infinite, and lets us for moments 
gaze into that." To have heard the "Sonata Appas- 
sionata," or the overture to "Tannhauser" for the 
first time in the great chamber, is an event to be re- 
membered. Then in the old days there was a girl 
violinist with dark eyes and hair who used to play 
the "Carnival of Venice" at conversazione concerts. 
Her music begat verses to her; but Toronto men are 
not so sentimental now-a-days. 

Here, too, through the wisdom of our Fellow of 
Merton, we learned the meaning of the lines about 
"gorgeous tragedy with sceptred pall." The "An- 
tigone" cost not a little to produce, in time and 



THIS IS OUR MASTER 149 

money and mental wear and tear; but it was worth 
the outlay ten times over. It was something that 
the Glee Club abandoned "Alouette" and the "Car- 
men ad Initiandos Tirones" for "Megaloi de logoi, 
megalas plegas." The lights, the colour, the shift- 
ing statuesque groups, the masses of the chorus, 
"the music of an antique tongue" blended with the 
music of Mendelssohn, made one Greek play at least 
for ever comprehensible to us. 

Convocation Hall saw, besides, our little triumphs 
of the hour, heard our spoutings and debatings. In 
what arena since has success brought a finer glow or 
tasted sweeter? 

With much unfeigned reluctance I must confess 
that the occasion of my first view of Professor Young 
was a "supplemental" examination, in Convoca- 
tion Hall, for I was one of those unwise persons who 
took three years at Toronto, when I might have 
taken four, and suffered in consequence. With the 
Freshman's imperfect sense of proportion, I had 
just taken the seat of a fellow sinner in a higher year, 
and had my error pointed out to me with dignity 
but decision, when an old gentleman marched up 
the aisle, mounted the dais, and faced us to make 
some unimportant announcement. He was an old 
gentleman with a bald head, a white beard, and a 
rasping voice: and I wondered with all the wonder 



i 5 o LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

of a Freshman why the others cheered. My digni- 
fied senior told me that it was "Young"; but the 
name meant nothing to me. Later I was one of those 
who cheered the casual mention of his name on a 
programme, much more his bodily presence. 

There is no weather now so fine as when the term 
began in those old days. October mornings were 
always bright and kindly with a touch of frost in 
the air to hint of the coming winter. The sunshine 
was inside the building, as well as out, and gilded all 
the courses. One of the first make-weights I had to 
shoulder, in addition to my "Honours" course, was 
Young's lectures in Metaphysics; and I entered the 
class unthinkingly. Such was the good pleasure of 
the authorities, the decree of the curriculum; and it 
was not mine to reason why, — a remark which 
needs explanation. 

When Toronto men of the early eighties call that 
time Toronto's Age of Gold, they are thinking 
chiefly of certain hearts of gold, which every test of 
time only proves true metal. But it is just possible 
that the dons of that day did not hold precisely this 
opinion. We were undoubtedly a licentious crew. 
The accepted theory of university life was "to en- 
large your mind and play football"; and some men 
did both with marked success. We certainly never 
wanted energy. The men of the notorious "sore- 



THIS IS OUR MASTER 151 

head department" found the university instruction 
deficient and organized the mother of all the clubs 
to make good that deficiency. We hunted out Ger- 
man families in the city to board with, to improve 
our German; we spent our vacations in Quebec, to 
improve our French; we taught peanut vendors in 
the Italian Sunday School, to improve our Italian. 
We worried the authorities into bettering the courses. 
We cultivated literature on a little oatmeal; we 
published an anthology of our own immortal writ- 
ings; we astonished the world with a new Protes- 
tantism. One oddity diverged from the regular pre- 
scriptions into heraldry and Russian. Our Shelley 
spent a winter in Paris, where he consorted with the 
people called Anarchists, and returned a missionary 
of the gospel of Henry George. We went to England 
as cattle-men, that we might stand in the Abbey in 
the Poets' Corner and see with our own eyes those 
sacred places which had belonged to the geography 
of Fairy-Land. We read "Sartor" for the Blumine 
episode; we despised "gig-men"; our greatest oath 
was, By Saint Thomas of Carlyle. Above all, we 
put in practice a rude elective system of our own, 
quite distinct from that contemplated by the uni- 
versity regulations. If lectures were, in our mature 
judgment, not good, we refrained from attending 
them; or, if the tradition ran that a particular course 



1 52 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

was forty years old, or thereabouts, as the frayed 
and yellowing manuscript attested, we strove to 
lure the lecturer from the well-beaten highway into 
delightful by-paths of anecdote and reminiscence. 
If lectures were good, we attended, even "Pass" 
lectures; and that was the reason Young's room was 
always crowded. 

His was the first room in the eastern corridor. 
Twice a week it was filled at ten o'clock with a noisy 
throng, sitting on the hard benches, chatting or look- 
ing out upon the lawn through the narrow, diamond- 
paned windows. On the stroke of the hour, there 
enters hastily an old gentleman in black, with his 
gown slipping off his shoulders, and his mortar- 
board in his hand, full of manuscript. Without 
noticing the applause which always greets his en- 
trance, — for in Canada we have this hearty Scot- 
tish custom which so shocks the decorous Ameri- 
can visitor in Edinburgh classrooms, — he swiftly 
divests himself of his gown, which he bundles up on 
the top of the high, spindling reading-desk, scrawled 
all over with " Hence accordingly." Swiftly he takes 
the notes from the trencher, which he plumps down 
on top of the gown, wheels round to the blackboard 
and dashes off an outline of the coming lecture. 
Each head of the discourse is marked with the quaint 
device of a little bob-tailed arrow flying straight at 



THIS IS OUR MASTER 153 

it. I did not understand the symbolism then; nor, 
I believe, did Young himself. Those arrows signi- 
fied that these were winged words, as goads fastened 
by the masters of assemblies. 

In a minute or two, the outline is written, and the 
professor turns to the class with a smile. 

Let us take a good look at him; for we shall never 
see his like again. He was a survival of an extinct 
race of giants, the Edinburgh metaphysicians; and he 
brought into the classroom all the dignity of the old 
school. He always appeared in his "blacks," flapped 
trousers of a pattern worn early in the century and 
an old-fashioned claw-hammer coat, always looking 
new and carefully brushed. His linen, too, was al- 
ways immaculate, and, in token of the profession he 
had abandoned, he sported a clerical tie. In figure he 
was of middle size, neither short nor tall, markedly 
sturdy, in spite of a slight stoop. At first sight his 
face was not inspiring. He had a bald head, a thick 
nose, a port- wine complexion, and the fine, clear white 
hair and beard which go with it. The brows formed 
a heavy ridge, "the bar of Michael Angelo," from 
which the rest of the skull retreated; the forehead 
seemed low ; but all that was best of him looked out 
of his bright eyes. He had a trick of shutting them 
tight, and shading them with his left hand, while he 
motioned with his right, as he said, — 



154 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

"When I think of a centaurr, I see a centaurr with 
the horrse's body as here [gesture] and the man's 
body as here [gesture]. And when I think of Socrates 
I see Socrates with his bald head, — and his snub 
nose, — and his luminous eyes." 

Then we held our breath, for it was plain to the 
meanest understanding that Young did behold a veri- 
table "centaurr," trotting along in an ideal world; 
and as for "Socrates," — well, some of us had read 
"Waring" and puzzled over the meaning of the last 
word. 

Young always stood at lecture. We should have 
felt it to be a violation of the order of nature, to see 
him sit down. Indeed, there was hardly room for 
him to do so, penned in as he was between the black- 
board and the regiment of long desks, which filled the 
room. He stood, not on a platform above us, but on 
a level with us. Perhaps there was a meaning in this, 
too. The imagination cannot picture him lolling in 
a comfortable Katheder and dictating an interminable 
"literature" of his subject. As he begins to speak, 
his voice is harsh, and thin; the Scotch burr grates 
intolerably. But soon it gathers richness and depth 
and power; Young is warming to his work, and your 
only fear is that he will stop. The lecture was not an 
oration, but a model of clear and rapid exposition, 
following the outline on the board. It is punctuated 



THIS IS OUR MASTER 155 

by rounds of hearty Kentish fire, as each point is 
made. Young understands and waits with a smile 
for it to cease, before he goes on again. He generally 
ends in a climax, as on that day, when he read, in 
illustration of some statement, ten or a dozen lines 
from "Elaine," closing the book with a sweeping 
bow and a comprehensive smile, at the words, "And 
soa she lived in phaantasy." 

Young was old-fashioned in his illustrations. Chief 
of these were the watch and the orange and the round 
red disk he talked so much about but never produced. 
They had only an ideal existence. I have, however, 
a portrait of that red disk, labelled to prevent mis- 
takes, and I believe it to be a good likeness. This 
simple object "involved 

" (a) A sensation of Redness, 

"(b) A manifold of Sensations under relations of 
Extension." 

Above all, there was the famous ribbon, "blue at 
one end and red at the other," of which Irwin made 
such capital and kindly fun in the "'Varsity Book." 
We knew them all as old friends and felt the lecture 
to be rather incomplete at which none of them put 
in an appearance. 

His manner in the classroom was fascinating — no 
weaker word will do. He had a way of beaming on a 
roomful of young men, as if each and every one was 



156 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

his particular friend. His Honour men he cultivated; 
but undistinguished Pass men like the present writer 
he did not know from Adam. Toronto traditions do 
not favour the growth of personal relations between 
teachers and taught. No member of our class will, 
I fancy, dispute my claim to being the worst meta- 
physician in it. I remember writing down one of 
Young's citations from one of the old Grecians: 
"Hidden harmony is better than apparent." I, 
however, wrote it thus, "Hidden harmony is better 
than a parent," and puzzled over it a long time, as 
well I might. The saying was no doubt deep and wise, 
for it was Greek, and Young had quoted it with ap- 
proval, but I felt that now I was really getting beyond 
my depth. The only time Young quizzed me in class, 
I failed, and he snubbed me, contrary to his custom, 
in a way I did not wholly deserve. It was a rude 
awakening, for up to that time I had cherished the 
delusion that I stood specially well with him, and I 
believe every man in the class had much the same 
notion in regard to himself. His portrait shows him 
grave, but as I call up his face, it is always shining 
with the inward glow of thought and kindliness. 
Only once was he stern with us, when he thought 
that, in the excitement of a Literary Society election, 
we had tried to discredit a Roman Catholic candidate 
on account of his religion. We had not done so in 



THIS IS OUR MASTER 157 

fact, but we took the rebuke to heart. We "had 
such reverence for his blame." 

No course in Metaphysics is complete without a 
consideration of the child's mind. The modern psy- 
chologist observes his own infants and makes a book 
of the results, a course of action barred to Young, for 
he was an old bachelor. The college legend ran that 
the lady he was to marry perished in the Desjardins 
Bridge accident. Still his treatment of this part of 
his subject could not be considered unsatisfactory. 
His references to the young things had more than a 
little of Elia's tenderness and humour, as in "Dream 
Children," that vision of the circle round the red 
hearth-fire, that haunts the childless man. Some of 
us' expected to teach, and Young used to counsel 
us not to be too hard on the bairns, not to trouble 
if they were restless in school and fidgeted on their 
benches. " Children wake up in the morning and their 
nervous centres are lauded with energy," he would 
say; and this piece of advice saved one teacher, at 
least, from many a mistake. The baby, he pretended, 
Was at first a very unattractive, unmoral little animal. 

"Gentlemen," — and there was education in the 
way Young said "Gentlemen," — "you will some- 
times see a crrowd of ladies about a little infant, and 
they are saying, 'Oh, the dearr little thing! Oh, the 
sweet little thing!' Gentlemen, I tell you," — here 



158 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

his eyes twinkled and his whole face beamed like a 
sun, as he added with comic vehemence, — "a baaby 
is, 'a wretch concenterred all on self.'" 

Young's lecture was more than a lecture. As a mere 
expositor, simply as a teacher of his subject, able to 
arouse interest and hold attention, I never heard his 
equal. The hour we spent in his classroom never 
seemed long. If a student was ever bored or tired I 
cannot tell, for I never saw or heard anything but 
Young from first to last. To say that he was all alive 
with interest in his subject and in his students is to 
understate the fact. At each lecture he seemed to 
feel that from all eternity he had but this one brief 
hour to drive home upon the minds of this one set of 
men, this one set of truths; and he made the most of 
it. How familiar is the phrase: "And I shall think 
the hour well spent, gentlemen, if I succeed in making 
this one point clear to you." He never condescended 
to classroom tricks, or the freakishness of a carefully 
cultivated eccentricity; he never attempted to raise 
a laugh, but there was a good deal of laughing in his 
class. Sometimes it was the laugh of intellectual 
superiority as Mill, Reid, Hamilton, and Company, 
were battered about, and we learned that it was pay- 
ing something or other too high a compliment to call it 
wrong; it was nonsense. And the last word came out 
like a bullet from a gun. Sometimes the laugh had a 



THIS IS OUR MASTER 159 

less profound cause, for Young's humour bubbled up 
irrepressibly from the inner depths of the man and 
his interest in his subject; and he simply shared it 
with us, along with all that was best in his nature. 

I have never heard his equal. I have sat in the 
seminar of Johns Hopkins's great Grecian, with men 
from Maine and California, from Toronto and Baton 
Rouge, and marvelled at the union of culture and 
character, the blending of brilliancy and learning, the 
perfect reconciliation of the exact scholarship we as- 
sociate with Germany and the grace and wit we as- 
sociate with Oxford, in the Head of the Department. 
I know the reverence of Harvard men for their Pro- 
fessor Emeritus of Fine Arts, the friend of Ruskin 
and Carlyle, of all just men, of all good causes. I 
have heard him lecture to a class of five hundred in 
"old Massachusetts," at nine of a rainy morning. 
Behind every sentence of his mellow English, I saw 
years of special knowledge, special insight, a lifetime 
of exquisite culture. Both lecturers opened the doors 
to new worlds of wonder. But Young's gift was 
something different and apart. He took hold of us; 
he woke us to life, the life of the mind. His teaching 
was, in effect, if not in method, more like what we 
learn of the teaching of Socrates than anything I can 
imagine, of a modern Socrates, a lover of wisdom, 
reenforced by the perfervid energy of the Scot. Those 



160 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

who knew him and loved him, who recognize how 
much they owe to his teaching, feel that Young is 
worthy to take rank in that sacred band, so well 
praised by another grateful scholar. 

For rigorous teachers seized my youth, 
And purged its faith and trimm'd its fire, 

Showed me the high white star of truth, 
There bade me gaze and there aspire. 

What did Young teach us? Not trusting to memory 
alone, I hunted out an old notebook, to find the an- 
swer. It is not a very creditable production. There 
are disordered pencillings of various courses, which 
should have been neatly copied into another book 
and were not, bits of English and German biogra- 
phy, drawings of shells, Chapman's scale of hardness, 
alongside a recognizable portrait of the professor and 
his skull-cap, quotations and extracts from various 
sources, which would not be of the slightest use in 
examinations; but the greatest part is taken up with 
Young's lectures. The notes are not very good notes. 
How could any one take notes while Young was lec- 
turing? Mine were seldom more than the outlines 
from the blackboard, decorated freely with the fa- 
mous bob-tailed arrows. The course was evidently 
the traditional Philosophy-Logic course of the old 
curriculum, for Young knew not the New Psychology 
with its laboratories and experiments. Though I 



THIS IS OUR MASTER 161 

must have passed his examinations (for the charity 
of some examiners is boundless), I am not and never 
could be a metaphysician. For the life of me, I 
cannot tell what sentence of the "Kritik" it was, 
which Young so often assured us "should be written 
in letters of gold." Even now an article of Caird's on 
"Reality," or a conversation on philosophy makes 
my head swim. But I would not exchange Young's 
course in metaphysics for all the others I took at 
Toronto. Metaphysics was but a small part of that 
course. Young was a born teacher. That he taught 
us philosophical truths of the last importance was 
still a slighter thing than teaching us to think and 
teaching us to live. 

The problem of the external world! Had any of 
us the faintest notion that there was such a prob- 
lem, before our Chrysostom opened his lips of gold? 
This was a common Canadian sort of universe, which 
we all understood well enough for all practical pur- 
poses. Then came the awakening, the veil was taken 
from our eyes. This solid-seeming world was but 
the shadow of our dream, if, indeed, it had being at 
all, apart from ourselves. Everything we saw and 
touched, and heard and felt, the most humdrum effect 
of our activity, the commonest motion of foot or 
hand, were all parts of one unending miracle. 

Turning our eyes inward upon ourselves as Cas- 



i6a LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

sius wished that Brutus could, we found there also 
a new strange world. "The abysmal depths of per- 
sonality!" There was, then, a world within us, 
wherein this marvellous outer world to the remotest 
point of light in the heavens is embraced, compre- 
hended, set in order. The procession of Appearances 
took on a pleasing strangeness and the horizon of 
those blue October mornings on the Lawn widened 
to Immensity. It was the time of fresh enthusi- 
asm, of loyal friendships, of young love, and this new 
teaching came to give them all a new value, a new 
meaning, a new force. 

Young began as a Scottish minister, but he found 
his true work as a teacher in the University. Inevi- 
tably something of the minister clung to him, a sug- 
gestion in the dress, a hint of the pulpit in his perora- 
tions, but best of all the true prophet's moral earnest- 
ness. He was a preacher of righteousness. His 
course was not a mere exercise of ingenuity, a neces- 
sary part of the curriculum, a prescribed exercise for 
a degree. As he taught, he saw before him human 
souls needing light, needing guidance; the fault was 
his if he showed no light, or light that led astray. He 
came to his work as the potter to the raw clay, from 
which he knows may be fashioned vessels to honour 
and vessels to dishonour. What blame too heavy 
for the workman if, from slackness on his part, the 



THIS IS OUR MASTER 163 

work leave the shaping hand, flawed, or weak, or 
bent awry! Though a preacher, he was no partizan 
of a narrow, unlovely orthodoxy. To youths of every 
shade of belief, from all parts of Puritan Canada, 
to Protestant and Catholic, to those who wished to 
live so that they could look their mothers in the face, 
to those who were using their first freedom to take 
their first lessons in vice, Young preached the great 
doctrines by which the pillars of the world stand firm. 
He leant chiefly toward those that insist on the dig- 
nity of man and the worth of the human soul: "self- 
reverence, self-knowledge, self-control." We all heard 
him, for he spoke plain, and if we did not heed, the 
fault was ours, not his. Life only approves his wis- 
dom. In difficulty after difficulty, in crisis after 
crisis, how often have his old students found some 
winged word of Young's rising to comfort or to re- 
buke! 

And now, — he is gone. He wrote nothing; his 
chief memorial is builded in the hearts of those he 
taught. Now Toronto men leave the college walls by 
hundreds, graduates in good standing, to whom his 
great tradition, his great language, mean nothing. 
It is a pity. Convocation Hall is gone, too, like the 
old, wise master, like the snows of last year. The 
new order is no doubt better, but the old interior, 
the precious carvings, the broad stair in the library 



164 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

turret with the latticed window that opened toward 
the sunrising, have perished irrevocably. No wonder 
the Great Fire killed our old President! 

Young worked until within a few days of his death. 
He was numbered with the fortunate ones who die in 
harness. His eye was not dim, nor his natural force 
abated. And it was fitting that he should make a 
final progress from Convocation Hall in all the pomp 
of the eternal silence. I wish I could have stood on 
the dais, under the memorial window, beside the 
coffin on which lay the old college cap, like the sol- 
dier's helmet on the soldier's bier. I wish I could 
have joined in the hymn raised by those who were 
buckling on the armour of life over all that was mortal 
of him who had laid it down. I wish I could have 
heard the prayer of the deep-hearted pastor of St. 
Andrew's, and the words he spoke of the best and 
wisest and humblest of his parishioners. I wish I 
could have looked once more upon that honoured 
head before the clods covered it; and have followed 
my old master to his last resting-place. I could not, 
for I was far away. I can only lay this belated 
token of my gratitude upon his grave. 



Forgive the feeble script that does thee wrong! 



CHILD OF THE BALLADS 



CHILD OF THE BALLADS 

WHEN the general public hears of a professor's 
death, it is moved and interested by the news 
almost as much as it would be by the announcement 
that some grammar or dictionary or table of loga- 
rithms had been thumbed to pieces and finally laid 
aside. In many cases the public indifference is 
justifiable; but in the death of such a man as Pro- 
fessor Child the loss is national; and it would be a 
thousand pities if the outside world did not recognize 
its significance. To the world of scholars, however, 
that inner circle which must always bound the in- 
fluence of a university teacher, the sense of loss is 
only too poignant. His death leaves a gap in their 
ranks which will not soon be filled. The little world 
of those who really care for the highest things of 
life is darker now that he has gone. As it can do 
good and not harm to know what manner of man he 
was, these brief personal recollections are set down 
in the hope of bringing an unusual character more 
perfectly before the public eye, now that such an 
action cannot possibly offend him. 

167 



1 68 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

I had not the honour of being his friend, nor 
even of receiving his instruction in the university. 
My acquaintance with him began almost casually, 
and I could not have seen him or had speech with 
him more than a score of times altogether. Neither 
a colleague nor a pupil, I was only one of the many 
who had no claim upon him, to whom he showed 
kindness, and whose memory of him and of his 
kindness is ineffaceable. 

On migrating from Johns Hopkins to Harvard in 
the summer of 1888 to work at a thesis during vaca- 
tion, I obtained a letter of introduction from the 
President of Johns Hopkins to Professor Child. It 
would be an inspiring thought for even the humblest 
worker in the same department to remember that he 
had even once seen and spoken with the doyen of 
English scholarship in America. Along with the 
letter the President gave me a piece of excellent 
advice; namely, not to present the introduction in 
the morning, but to wait till some afternoon ; then to 
walk along Kirkland Street until I came to a house 
with a rose-garden in front; there I should find any 
day, about five o'clock, an old gentleman tending 
his flowers, who would be, indeed, the personage J 
sought. I followed the directions and was rewarded 
by seeing the great man for the first time among 
his roses, a most fitting place for him. The first 



CHILD OF THE BALLADS 169 

sight was something of a shock. All preconceived 
notions of what a Harvard professor would look like 
vanished at the sight of the man who took my letter 
as the rightful owner. The famous scholar presented 
a short, rotund little figure (the student's nickname 
for him was "Curly" in allusion either to his shape 
or to his remarkable hair), dressed in well-worn 
brown clothes and crowned with a shocking bad hat. 
On second thoughts, his trim had its justification. 
It would be queer to oversee the mulching of roses 
in one's best clothes. 

From under the rim of the old straw hat peered 
two as keen eyes as I ever saw in a human face. 
They were eyes which could not be deceived or 
turned aside from looking you through and through. 
They seemed to read you in a moment and put you 
in your right place. The gold-rimmed glasses seemed 
to add brightness to the eyes. Some spectacles form 
a mask behind which the owner retires and remains 
effectually concealed ; but Child's were perfectly clear 
and seemed to ray out light and intensify his pierc- 
ing vision. The colour of his eyes was a very bright 
hazel brown. 

A day or two later came a kind informal note 
asking me to dine. The family was out of town and 
the Professor did the honours alone. It was a hot, 
quiet, Cambridge Sunday and his cool, shady rooms 



i 7 o LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

formed a most welcome retreat. The convives made 
up the number of the graces, the lowest limit as- 
signed by Rogers, for the Professor had taken pity 
on another young scholastic person. The dinner 
itself formed a grateful oasis to one who had wan- 
dered long in the wilderness of boarding-houses. 
But the talk was the real entertainment and it was 
a feast of fat things. Never was host freer from any 
touch of awkwardness or appearance of effort. In 
a very short time he put us youngsters completely 
at our ease and talked with a freedom, a boyish zest 
in things that interested them that was surprising 
and delightful. At table he was chiefly the genial 
host, easy but attentive in his hospitality. During 
the courses the conversation was more or less 
broken, but afterwards, in his cool study, over 
the coffee and cigars, the talk ran more in straight 
lines. 

I like to think of Child as I saw him that after- 
noon, at his ease under his own roof-tree, enjoying 
his fat, brown, pungent, post-prandial cigar. Here 
was a man who had earned his hour of repose; and 
he enjoyed it to the full. In his low, deep, com- 
fortable arm-chair, you did not notice how stout he 
was or how stooped. Like the master he delighted 
to honour, he was "no poppet to embrace"; nor was 
that other illuminating touch of "elvishness" want- 



CHILD OF THE BALLADS 171 

ing. In his chair he looked much younger than when 
he stood up. Between figure and face there was a 
strange want of harmony. The figure was the figure 
of Sancho Panza; but the face was stamped with 
the asceticism of the scholar. The keen eye went 
well with a straight, keen nose; and the profile was 
a singular union of strength and fine line. Without 
a sign of beard, and yet not looking shaven, his 
"hue" was a healthy reddish brown, suggestive of 
the open air. At the same time it was without a 
single line or wrinkle, and it was neither puffy nor 
fat, nor fallen in. His head looked small and round, 
and was covered with thick, dry-looking, chestnut 
hair, curling closely and not showing a single thread 
of grey. Altogether it was a face which once seen 
could not be forgotten. The strangest thing was the 
absence of any sign of advancing years. One knew 
that he could not be young; the bent form, the 
crinkled, gouty boots denoted age; but neither in 
the face nor in the alert manner, nor in the un- 
forced laugh, nor in the brilliant talk was there the 
slightest symptom of decaying power. It was the 
same when I saw him last not very long before his 
death. On a Vdge de son cceur; and, to the end, his 
was the heart of a boy. 

It is impossible for any one but a Boswell to give 
more than a general idea of the conversation of a 



17* LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

distinguished man. Like all good talk, Child's was 
that day freely discursive. Praed would have en- 
joyed him, for, like the famous vicar, — 

His conversation was a stream 
With rapid turns from rocks to roses. 

Only the faithful reporter is bound to add that there 
were no rocks of offence or stones of stumbling in 
Child's; it was rather "roses, roses all the way." 
The other guest had been a trooper in that Michigan 
cavalry that followed the raider Morgan so long and 
so hard, and his face bore the marks of the hardships 
and privations he had undergone during the nation's 
great struggle for life. Mention of this led Child 
to speak of war ballads which he had written for the 
Harvard men who had gone to the front. He did 
this chiefly, it would seem, to bring in the adverse 
criticism of a friend who pronounced them "too 

d literary"; and Child repeated the phrase with 

comic relish in its mild impropriety; and then quoted 
some lilt of his friend's composition about "pork 
and beans and hard tack," as rougher and much 
more to the purpose. This led him naturally to speak 
of his own monumental edition of the English and 
Scotch ballads. He said that he had been encouraged 
to undertake it by "my friend Norton," who had 
asked him, "Why don't you begin? You may 



CHILD OF THE BALLADS 173 

die before you finish it." This is only one more 
bit of evidence proving what the world owes to 
the man whom John Ruskin was also proud to 
call friend and helper. It is comforting to think 
that Child did complete his monument before he 
died. 

About this time a well-known American writer 
had committed himself publicly to the opinion that 
Scott's novels should not be put into the hands of 
innocent youth without a warning against their 
dangerous anti-democratic tendency. And the dic- 
tum had occasioned some remark. Child did not 
hold by it, and said, by way of explanation merely, 
that this same critic had asked him in astonishment, 
"Can you read Scott?" "There is na more to 
seie." 

Throughout the conversation there was not a trace 
of what Newman calls "donnishness," that certain 
condescension in learned persons which made Thack- 
eray find a place for Crump, the Oxford tutor, in 
his snobbium gatherum, or of those peculiarities which 
make the tales of Jowett's behaviour at his own 
table such amusing reading. There was learning, 
but it came into view only for a minute, and it 
was worn as lightly as a flower, one of his own 
roses. On the other hand, there was none of that 
over-plain effort on the part of a senior to outdo the 



174 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

vivacity of younger men, nor did he seem more than 
our own age. As I have said, once or twice already, 
Child was never old. Hearty as his laugh was and 
merry as his anecdote, they never suggested the 
least diminution of his dignity nor invited the least 
liberty. His fun was shot through with sadness. 
I remember him saying suddenly, and with feeling, 
it seemed to me, "What do you suppose an agnostic 
does instead of teaching his little boy his prayers? I 
wonder what pleasure he has like hearing his son say 
his prayers." But the mood soon passed and he 
talked of other things. It was this same afternoon 
that he discussed Hood, and dilated on the charm of 
his lyric snatches, their pure grace, tenderness, and 
unforced music, as well as on the surprising clever- 
ness of his jolly, verbal acrobatics, his crackling 
strings of puns, his most ingenious yet convincing 
rhymes. 

I am afraid that we out-stayed the set conventional 
limit and must have punished our host more or less 
for his hospitality; but, if it were so, no sign or hint, 
or word or look betrayed him. From our point of 
view, we came away too soon; and on stepping out 
among the lengthening shadows of the great Cam- 
bridge elms, we felt somehow that we had left all 
the brightness behind. That was a day to be marked 
with a white stone. 



CHILD OF THE BALLADS 175 

After such a meeting several things were easier to 
understand; for instance, the tone of dedications in 
not a few works of the best American scholars. 
Such phrases as, "teacher and friend," "affection- 
ately dedicated," "gratitude and affection," took on 
a new meaning now that I had seen the man to whom 
they referred and knew that the phrases came from 
men who did not wear their heart on their sleeve. 
I understood how it was accounted a triumph of in- 
nocent diplomacy to lure him away from his books 
and his roses to a little gathering of which he would 
be the life and honoured centre. I do not think he 
ever understood in any adequate way the real atti- 
tude of the younger generation toward him. Never 
man deserved less the injunction, not to think too 
highly of himself. 

The last time I saw him was in the September of 
'93. It was again at a most delightful luncheon at 
his own house; this time he was not alone. Besides 
the family a Harvard professor or two had been in- 
vited, and during the course of the informal meal 
room was made for a well-known translator who 
happened to drop in. There was no constraint 
and plenty of sparkling talk. The host took part 
all round, his keen eyes noting any lack in plate or 
glass. On hearing it gravely contended that mo- 
narchical institutions were demonstrably superior to 



176 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

republican in that the British- American professor 
has a summer vacation of four clear months, instead 
of three, he shot the question across the table, "Can 
you grow roses in Nova Scotia?" "Is the climate 
suitable?" — and learning that all conditions were 
favourable, he proclaimed, with comic solemnity, his 
intention of getting a place in the land of the Blue- 
noses if — they would have him. It was roses to 
the last. He was one of those who weave them into 
the grey homely fabric of our lives. 

After luncheon, the party broke up into small 
groups and wandered about the place. Somehow or 
other I found myself alone with the man I respected 
so; and stood by him in an open French window as 
he luxuriated in one of his Gargantuan cigars, and 
talked. It was our last talk, neither of us knowing 
that it was so decreed. 

Thinking it over now, I see that nothing could 
have been fitter for a last meeting than what he said 
and the way he said it. The scholar of world-wide 
reputation, the man of years, each one with its full 
harvest of experience, speaking freely of the deepest 
things of life, as a father might to a son, — what 
could be more fitting, or better worth treasuring as 
an inspiration? 

A great poet has suggested how the life of the good 
man is affected by "that best portion of it, — 



CHILD OF THE BALLADS 177 

His little nameless unremembered acts 
Of kindness and of love, — " 

The good man himself does not remember, but some 
of those to whom he showed kindness are not so for- 
getful; and on their lives, too, such acts exert "no 
slight or trivial influence." 



THE BEST SEA-STORY EVER 
WRITTEN 



THE BEST SEA-STORY EVER 
WRITTEN 

ANY one who undertakes to reverse some judg- 
ment in history or criticism, or to set the public 
right regarding some neglected man or work, becomes 
at once an object of suspicion. Nine times out of ten 
he is called a literary snob for his pains, or a prig who 
presumes to teach his betters, or a "phrase-monger," 
or a "young Osric," or something equally soul-sub- 
duing. Besides, the burden of proof lies heavy upon 
him. He preaches to a sleeping congregation. The 
good public has returned its verdict upon the case, 
and is slow to review the evidence in favour of the 
accused, or, having done so, to confess itself in the 
wrong. Still, difficult as the work of rehabilitation 
always is, there are cheering instances of its complete 
success ; notably, the rescue of the Elizabethan drama- 
tists by Lamb and Hazlitt and Leigh Hunt. Nor in 
such a matter is the will always free. As Heine says, 
ideas take possession of us and force us into the arena, 
there to fight for them. There is also the possibility 
of triumph to steel the raw recruit against all dangers. 
Though the world at large may not care, the judicious 

181 



1 82 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

few may be glad of new light, and may feel satisfac- 
tion in seeing even tardy justice meted out to real 
merit. In my poor opinion much less than justice 
has been done to an American writer, whose achieve- 
ment is so considerable that it is hard to account for 
the neglect into which he has fallen. 

This writer is Herman Melville, who died in New 
York in the autumn of 189 1, aged eighty- three. That 
his death excited little attention is in consonance with 
the popular apathy toward him and his work. The 
Civil War marks a dividing-line in his literary pro- 
duction as well as in his life. His best work belongs 
to the ante-bellum days, and is cut off in taste and 
sympathy from the distinctive literary fashions of the 
present time. To find how complete neglect is, one 
has only to put question to the most cultivated and 
patriotic Americans North or South, East or West, 
even professed specialists in the nativist literature, 
and it will be long before the Melville enthusiast 
meets either sympathy or understanding. The pres- 
ent writer made his first acquaintance with "Moby 
Dick" in the dim, dusty Mechanics' Institute Library 
(opened once a week by the old doctor) of an obscure 
Canadian village, nearly twenty years ago; and since 
that time he has seen only one copy of the book ex- 
posed for sale, and met only one person (and that 
not an American) who had read it. Though Kingsley 



THE BEST SEA-STORY 183 

has a good word for Melville, the only place where 
real appreciation of him is to be found of recent years 
is in one of Mr. Clark Russell's dedications. There 
occurs the phrase which gives this paper its title. 
Whoever takes the trouble to read this unique and 
original book will concede that Mr. Russell knows 
whereof he affirms. 

Melville is a man of one book, and this fact ac- 
counts possibly for much of his unpopularity. The 
marked inferiority of his work after the war, as well 
as changes in literary fashion, would drag the rest 
down with it. Nor are his earliest works, embodying 
personal experience like "Redburn" and "White 
Jacket," quite worthy of the pen which wrote "Moby 
Dick." "Omoo" and "Typee" are little more than 
sketches, legitimately idealized, of his own adventures 
in the Marquesas. They are notable works in that 
they are the first to reveal to civilized people the 
charm of life in the islands of the Pacific, the charm 
which is so potent in "Vailima Letters" and "The 
Beach of Falesa." Again, the boundless archipelagos 
of Oceanica furnish the scenes of "Mardi," his curi- 
ous political satire. This contains a prophecy of the 
war, and a fine example of obsolete oratory in the 
speech of the great chief Alanno from Hio-Hio. The 
prologue in a whale-ship and the voyage in an open 
boat are, perhaps, the most interesting parts. None 



1 84 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

of his books are without distinct and peculiar excel- 
lences, but nearly all have some fatal fault. Melville's 
seems a case of arrested literary development. The 
power and promise of power in his best work are al- 
most unbounded; but he either did not care to fol- 
low them up or he had worked out all his rifts of ore. 
The last years of his life he spent as a recluse. 

His life fitted him to write his one book. The rep- 
resentative of a good old Scottish name, his portrait 
shows distinctively Scottish traits. The head is the 
sort that goes naturally with a tall, powerful figure. 
The forehead is broad and square; the hair is abun- 
dant; the full beard masks the mouth and chin; the 
general aspect is of great but disciplined strength. 
The eyes are level and determined; they have specu- 
lation in them. Nor does his work belie his blood. 
It shows the natural bent of the Scot toward meta- 
physics; and this though tfulness is one pervading 
quality of Melville's books. In the second place, his 
family had been so long established in the country 
(his grandfather was a member of the "Boston Tea- 
Party") that he secured the benefits of education 
and inherited culture : and this enlightenment was in- 
dispensable in enabling him to perceive the literary 
"values" of the strange men, strange scenes, and 
strange events amongst which he was thrown. And 
then he had the love of adventure which drove him 



THE BEST SEA-STORY 185 

forth to gather his material at the ends of the earth. 
He made two voyages; first as a green hand of eight- 
een in one of the old clipper packets to Liverpool and 
back; and next, as a young man of twenty- three, in a 
whaler. The latter was sufficiently adventurous. 
Wearying of sea-life, he deserted on one of the Mar- 
quesas Islands, and came near being killed and eaten 
by cannibal natives who kept him prisoner for four 
months. At last he escaped, and worked his way 
home on a United States man-o'-war. This adventure 
lasted four years and he went no more to sea. 

After his marriage, he lived at Pittsfield for thirteen 
years, in close intimacy with Hawthorne, to whom he 
dedicated his chief work. My copy shows that it was 
written as early as 1851, but the title-page is dated 
exactly twenty years later. It shows as its three 
chief elements this Scottish thoughtfulness, the love 
of literature, and the love of adventure. 

When Mr. Clark Russell singles out "Moby Dick" 
for such high praise as he bestows upon it, we think 
at once of other sea-stories, — his own, Marryat's, 
Smollett's, perhaps, and such books as Dana's "Two 
Years before the Mast." But the last is a plain 
record of fact; in Smollett's tales, sea-life is only part 
of one great round of adventure; in Mr. Russell's 
mercantile marine, there is generally the romantic 
interest of the way of a man with a maid; and in 



1 86 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

Marryat's the rise of a naval officer through various 
ranks plus a love-story, or plenty of fun, righting, 
and prize-money. From all these advantages Mel- 
ville not only cuts himself off, but seems to heap all 
sorts of obstacles in his self-appointed path. Great 
are the prejudices to be overcome; but he triumphs 
over all. Whalers are commonly regarded as a sort 
of sea-scavengers. He convinces you that their busi- 
ness is poetic; and that they are the finest fellows 
afloat. He dispenses with a love-story altogether; 
there is hardly a flutter of a petticoat from chapter 
first to last. The book is not a record of fact; but of 
fact idealized, which supplies the frame for a terrible 
duel to the death between a mad whaling-captain and 
a miraculous white sperm whale. It is not a love- 
story, but a story of undying hate. 

In no other tale is one so completely detached from 
the land, even from the very suggestion of land. 
Though Nantucket and New Bedford must be men- 
tioned, only their nautical aspects are touched on; 
they are but the steps of the saddle-block from which 
the mariner vaults upon the back of his sea-horse. 
The strange ship Pequod is the theatre of all the strange 
adventures. For ever off soundings, she shows but 
as a central speck in a wide circle of blue or stormy 
sea; and yet a speck crammed full of human passions, 
the world itself in little. Comparison brings out only 



THE BEST SEA-STORY 187 

more strongly the unique character of the book. 
Whaling is the most peculiar business done by man 
upon the deep waters. A warship is but a mobile fort 
or battery; a merchantman is but a floating shop 
or warehouse; fishing is devoid of any but the ordi- 
nary perils of navigation ; but sperm- whaling, accord- 
ing to Melville, is the most exciting and dangerous 
kind of big-game hunting. One part of the author's 
triumph consists in having made the complicated 
operations of this strange pursuit perfectly familiar 
to the reader; and that not in any dull, pedantic 
fashion, but touched with the imagination, the hu- 
mour, the fancy, the reflection of a poet. His intimate 
knowledge of his subject and his intense interest in 
it make the whaler's life in all its details not only 
comprehensible but fascinating. 

A bare outline of the story, though it cannot suggest 
its peculiar charm, may arouse a desire to know more 
about it. The book takes its name from a monstrous, 
invincible, sperm whale of diabolical strength and 
malice. In an encounter with this leviathan, Ahab, 
the captain of a Nantucket whaler, has had his leg 
torn off. The long illness which ensues drives him 
mad; and his one thought upon recovery is vengeance 
upon the creature that has mutilated him. He gets 
command of the Pequod, concealing his purpose with 
the cunning of insanity until the fitting moment comes: 



1 88 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

then he swears the whole crew into his fatal vendetta. 
From this point on, the mad captain bears down all 
opposition, imposes his own iron will upon the ship's 
company, and affects them with like heat, until they 
are as one keen weapon fitted to his hand and to his 
purpose. In spite of all difficulties, in spite of all 
signs and portents and warnings, human and divine, 
he drives on to certain destruction. Everything 
conduces to one end, a three days' battle with the 
monster, which staves in and sinks the ship, like the 
ill-fated Essex. 

For a tale of such length, "Moby Dick" is undoubt- 
edly well constructed. Possibly the "Town-Ho's 
Story," interesting as it is, somewhat checks the prog- 
ress of the plot; but by the time the reader reaches 
this point, he is infected with the leisurely, trade-wind, 
whaling atmosphere, and has no desire to proceed 
faster than at the Pequod's own cruising rate. Pos- 
sibly the book might be shortened by excision, but 
when one looks over the chapters it is hard to decide 
which to sacrifice. The interest begins with the quaint 
words of the opening sentence, "Call me Ishmael"; 
and never slackens for at least a hundred pages. 
Ishmael's reasons for going to sea, his sudden friend- 
ship with Queequeg, the Fijian harpooneer, Father 
Mapple's sermon on Jonah, in the seamen's bethel, 
Queequeg's rescue of the country bumpkin on the 



THE BEST SEA-STORY 189 

way to Nantucket, Queequeg's Ramadan, the descrip- 
tion of the ship Pequod and her two owners, Elijah's 
warning, getting under way, and dropping the pilot, 
make up an introduction of great variety and pictur- 
esqueness. The second part deals with all the par- 
ticulars of the various operations in whaling from 
manning the mastheads and lowering the boats to 
trying out the blubber and cleaning up the ship, 
when all the oil is barrelled. In this part Ahab, who 
has been invisible in the retirement of his cabin, 
comes on deck and in various scenes different sides 
of his vehement, iron-willed, yet pathetic nature, are 
made intelligible. Here also is much learning to be 
found, and here, if anywhere, the story dawdles. The 
last part deals with the fatal three days' chase, the 
death of Ahab, and the escape of the White Whale. 

One striking peculiarity of the book is its Ameri- 
canism — a word which needs definition. The theme 
and style are peculiar to this country. Nowhere but 
in America could such a theme have been treated in 
such a style. Whaling is peculiarly an American in- 
dustry; and of all whalemen, the Nantucketers were 
the keenest, the most daring, and the most successful. 
Now, though there are still whalers to be found in the 
New Bedford slips, and interesting as it is to clamber 
about them and hear the unconscious confirmation of 
all Melville's details from the lips of some old har- 



190 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

pooneer or boat-header, the industry is almost extinct. 
The discovery of petroleum did for it. Perhaps Mel- 
ville went to sea for no other purpose than to con- 
struct the monument of whaling in this unique book. 
Not in his subject alone but in his style is Melville 
distinctly American. It is large in idea, expansive; 
it has an Elizabethan force and freshness and swing, 
and is, perhaps, more rich in figures than any style 
but Emerson's. It has the picturesqueness of the 
New World, and, above all, a free-flowing humour, 
which is the distinct cachet of American literature. 
No one would contend that it is a perfect style; some 
mannerisms become tedious, like the constant moral 
turn, and the curiously coined adverbs placed before 
the verb. Occasionally there is more than a hint of 
bombast, as indeed might be expected ; but, upon the 
whole, it is an extraordinary style, rich, clear, vivid, 
original. It shows reading and is full of thought and 
allusion; but its chief charm is its freedom from all 
scholastic rules and conventions. Melville is a Walt 
Whitman of prose. 

Like Browning he has a dialect of his own. The 
poet of "The Ring and the Book" translates the dif- 
ferent emotions and thoughts and possible words of 
pope, jurist, murderer, victim, into one level uniform 
Browningese; reduces them to a common denomi- 
nator, in a way of speaking, and Melville gives us not 



THE BEST SEA-STORY 191 

the actual words of American whalemen, but what 
they would say under the imagined conditions, trans- 
lated into one consistent, though various Melvillesque 
manner of speech. The life he deals with belongs 
already to the legendary past, and he has us com- 
pletely at his mercy. He is completely successful in 
creating his "atmosphere." Granted the conditions, 
the men and their words, emotions, and actions are 
all consistent. One powerful scene takes place on the 
quarter-deck of the Pequod one evening, when, all 
hands mustered aft, the Captain Ahab tells of the 
White Whale, and offers a doubloon to the first man 
who "raises" him: — 

"Captain Ahab," said Tashtego, "that White Whale 
must be the same that some call Moby Dick." 

"Moby Dick?" shouted Ahab. "Do ye know the 
White Whale then, Tash?" 

"Does he fan-tail a little curious, sir, before he goes 
down?" said the Gay-Header, deliberately. 

"And has he a curious spout, too," said Daggoo, 
"very bushy, even for a parmacetty, and mighty quick, 
Captain Ahab?" 

"And he have one, two, tree — oh, good many iron 
in him hide, too, Captain," cried Queequeg, disjointedly, 
"all twisktee be-twisk, like him — him" — faltering hard 
for a word, and 1 screwing his hand round and round as 
though uncorking a bottle — "like him — him — " 

"Corkscrew!" cried Ahab; "aye, Queequeg, the har- 
poons lie all twisted and wrenched in him; aye, Daggoo, 
his spout is a big one, like a whole shock of wheat, and 



1 92 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

white as a pile of our Nantucket wool after the great 
annual sheep-shearing; aye, Tashtego, and he fan-tails 
like a split jib in a squall." 

The first mate, Starbuck, asks him: — 

"It was not Moby Dick that took off thy leg?" 
"Who told thee that?" cried Ahab; then pausing, 
"Aye, Starbuck; aye, my hearties all round, it was 
Moby Dick that dismasted me, Moby Dick that brought 
me to this dead stump I stand on now. Aye, aye," 
he shouted with a terrific, loud, animal sob, like that 
of a heart-stricken moose; "aye, aye! it was that ac- 
cursed White Whale that razeed me; made a poor peg- 
ging lubber of me for ever and a day!" 

Starbuck alone attempts to withstand him. 

"Vengeance on a dumb brute!" cried Starbuck, 
"that simply smote thee from the blindest instinct! 
Madness; to be enraged with a dumb thing, Captain 
Ahab, seems blasphemous." 

"Hark ye, yet again, — the little lower layer. All vis- 
ible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But 
in each event — in the living act, the undoubted deed — 
there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth 
the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning 
mask. If man will strike, strike through the mask!" 

Then follows the wild ceremony of drinking round 
the capstan-head from the harpoon-sockets to con- 
firm Ahab's curse: "Death to Moby Dick. God hunt 
us all, if we do not hunt Moby Dick to the death!" 
The intermezzo of the various sailors on the fore- 



THE BEST SEA-STORY 193 

castle which follows until the squall strikes the ship 
is one of the most suggestive passages in all the liter- 
ature of the sea. Under the influence of Ahab's can, 
the men are dancing on the forecastle. The old Manx 
sailor says : — 

"I wonder whether those jolly lads bethink them of 
what they are dancing over. I'll dance over your grave, 
I will, — that 's the bitterest threat of your night-women, 
that beat head-winds round corners. O, Christ! to think 
of the green navies and the green-skulled crews." 

' Where every page, almost every paragraph, has 
its quaint or telling phrase, or thought, or suggested 
picture, it is hard to make a selection; and even the 
choicest morsels give you no idea of the richness of 
the feast. Melville's humour has been mentioned; it 
is a constant quantity. Perhaps the statement of his 
determination after the adventure of the first lowering 
is as good an example as any: — 

Here, then, from three impartial witnesses, I had a 
deliberate statement of the case. Considering, there- 
fore, that squalls and capsizings in the water, and con- 
sequent bivouacks in the deep, were matters of common 
occurrence in this kind of life; considering that at the 
superlatively critical moment of going on to the whale 
I must resign my life into the hands of him who steered 
the boat — oftentimes a fellow who at that very moment 
is in his impetuousness upon the point of scuttling the 
craft with his own frantic stampings; considering that 
the particular disaster to our own particular boat was 



i 9 4 UFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

chiefly to be imputed to Starbuck's driving on to his 
whale, almost in the teeth of a squall, and considering 
that Starbuck, notwithstanding, was famous for his 
great needfulness in the fishery; considering that I be- 
longed to this uncommonly prudent Starbuck's boat; 
and finally considering in what a devil's chase I was im- 
plicated, touching the White Whale: taking all things 
together, I say, I thought I might as well go below and 
make a rough draft of my will. 

"Queequeg," said I, "come along and you shall be 
my lawyer, executor, and legatee." 

The humour has the usual tinge of Northern mel- 
ancholy, and sometimes a touch of Rabelais. The ex- 
hortations of Stubb to his boat's crew, on different 
occasions, or such chapters as "Queen Mab," "The 
Cassock," "Leg and Arm," "Stubb's Supper," are 
good examples of his peculiar style. 

But, after all, his chief excellence is bringing to the 
landsman the very salt of the sea-breeze, while to one 
who has long known the ocean, he is as one praising 
to the lover the chiefest beauties of the Beloved. 
The magic of the ship and the mystery of the sea are 
put into words that form pictures for the dullest eyes. 
The chapter, "The Spirit Spout," contains these two 
aquarelles of the moonlit sea and the speeding ship 
side by side : — 

It was while gliding through these latter waters that 
one serene and moonlight night, when all the waves 
rolled by like scrolls of silver; and by their soft, suffusing 



THE BEST SEA-STORY 195 

seethings all things made what seemed a silvery silence, 
not a solitude; on such a silent night a silvery jet was 
seen far in advance of the white bubbles at the bow. 
Lit up by the moon it looked celestial; seemed some 
plumed and glittering god uprising from the sea. . . . 

Walking the deck, with quick, side-lunging strides, 
Ahab commanded the t 'gallant sails and royals to be 
set, and every stunsail spread. The best man in the 
ship must take the helm. Then, with every masthead 
manned, the piled-up craft rolled down before the wind. 
The strange, upheaving, lifting tendency of the taffrail 
breeze filling the hollows of so many sails made the 
buoyant, hovering deck to feel like air beneath the feet. 

In the chapter called "The Needle," ship and sea 
and sky are blended in one unforgettable whole : — 

Next morning the not-yet-subsided sea rolled in long 
slow billows of mighty bulk, and striving in the Pequod's 
gurgling track, pushed her on like giants' palms out- 
spread. The strong, unstaggering breeze abounded so, 
that sky and air seemed vast outbellying sails; the whole 
world boomed before the wind. Muffled in the full 
morning light, the invisible sun was only known by the 
spread intensity of his place; where his bayonet rays 
moved on in stacks. Emblazonings, as of crowned Baby- 
lonian kings and queens, reigned over everything. The 
sea was a crucible of molten gold, that bubblingly leaps 
with light and heat. 

It would be hard to find five consecutive sentences 
anywhere containing such pictures and such vivid, 
pregnant, bold imagery: but this book is made up of 
such things. 



196 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

The hero of the book is, after all, not Captain 
Ahab, but his triumphant antagonist, the mystic white 
monster of the sea, and it is only fitting that he should 
come for a moment, at least, into the saga. A com- 
plete scientific memoir of the sperm whale as known 
to man might be quarried from this book, for Melville 
has described the creature from his birth to his death, 
and even burial in the oil casks and the ocean. He 
has described him living, dead, and anatomized. At 
least one such description is in place here. The ap- 
pearance of the whale on the second day of the fatal 
chase is by "breaching," and nothing can be clearer 
than Melville's account of it: — 

The triumphant halloo of thirty buckskin lungs was 
heard, as — much nearer to the ship than the place of 
the imaginary jet, less than a mile ahead — Moby Dick 
bodily burst into view! For not by any calm and indo- 
lent spoutings, not by the peaceable gush of that mystic 
fountain in his head, did the White Whale now reveal 
his vicinity; but by the far more wondrous phenome- 
non of breaching. Rising with his utmost velocity from 
the farthest depths, the Sperm Whale thus booms his 
entire bulk into the pure element of air, and piling up 
a mountain of dazzling foam, shows his place to the dis- 
tance of seven miles and more. In those moments the 
torn, enraged waves he shakes off seem his mane; in 
some cases this breaching is his act of defiance. 

"There she breaches! there she breaches!" was the 
cry, as in his immeasurable bravadoes the White Whale 
tossed himself salmon-like to heaven. So suddenly seen 



THE BEST SEA-STORY 197 

in the blue plain of the sea, and relieved against the 
still bluer margin of the sky, the spray that he raised 
for the moment intolerably glittered and glared like a 
glacier; and stood there gradually fading and fading 
away from its first sparkling intensity to the dim misti- 
ness of an advancing shower in a vale. 

This book is at once the epic and the encyclopaedia 
of whaling. It is a monument to the honour of an 
extinct race of daring seamen; but it is a monument 
overgrown with the lichen of neglect. Those who will 
care to scrape away the moss may be few, but they 
will have their reward. To the class of gentleman- 
adventurer, to those who love both books and free 
life under the wide and open sky, it must always ap- 
peal. Melville takes rank with Borrow, and Jefferies, 
and Thoreau, and Sir Richard Burton; and his place 
in this brotherhood of notables is not the lowest. 
Those who feel the salt in their blood that draws 
them time and again out of the city to the wharves 
and the ships, almost without their knowledge or 
their will; those who feel the irresistible lure of the 
spring, away from the cramped and noisy town, up 
the long road to the peaceful companionship of the 
awaking earth and the untainted sky; all those — 
and they are many — will find in Melville's great 
book an ever fresh and constant charm. 



EVANGELINE AND THE REAL 
ACADIANS 



EVANGELINE AND THE 
REAL ACADIANS 



MAN is a lover and maker of myths. From prej- 
udice, from chivalry, from patriotism, from 
mental sloth, from sheer inability to know the thing 
which is, and tell a plain tale, neither adding nor 
abating aught, — from what is best and from what 
is worst in his nature, — he cherishes legend, fable, 
romance, anything but the simple fact. There is one 
hard way of hitting the white, and there are ten 
thousand easy ways of roving from it. The clearest 
demonstration of sober, lazy-pacing history can never 
oust a pleasing fiction from the popular belief. Per- 
haps this is a necessary part of the sorry scheme of 
things. Perhaps the very reason for the existence of 
the actual is to furnish a foundation for our gorgeous 
dream palaces, wherein we spend our lives charmed 
by a splendour which is only painted air. 

Fact and fiction are almost impossible to disen- 
tangle in the popular conception of that most pathetic 
incident, the forcible deportation of the French set- 

201 



202 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

tiers from Nova Scotia by the English Government 
in 1755. They were removed, not exterminated, — 
as was the Huguenot colony in Florida by the Span- 
iards. They were a mere handful compared with the 
three hundred thousand French citizens dragooned 
out of France upon the revocation of the great Henry's 
edict. Theirs was not so hard a fate as that of the 
thirty thousand Tories driven into vagabond exile at 
the close of the Revolutionary War. Nobody pities 
the Huguenots or the Loyalists; but the sufferings 
of the Acadians are blown in every ear. All the 
world knows their sad story; for they have not lacked 
their sacred poet. When the Reverend Mr. Conolly 
told the story of the two parted Acadian lovers, 
and Hawthorne turned the material over to Long- 
fellow, none of them could foresee the consequences 
of their action. 

The immediate outcome was "Evangeline," pub- 
lished in 1847. It became at once popular; now, after 
more than sixty years, its popularity is greater than 
ever. Within twelve years, the American tourist noted 
engravings of Faed's Evangeline in the print-shops of 
Halifax. The poem had crossed the ocean, furnished 
inspiration to the artist, the picture of the heroine 
— a thoroughly English type — was engraved, and 
the prints were familiar on this side of the Atlantic 
within a very short time. "Evangeline" is the best- 



EVANGELINE 203 

known poem de longue haleine ever written in America. 
Year after year thousands of Canadian and American 
school-children con the tale of the desolation of Grand 
Pre. The annotated editions for their use promise 
to extend into an infinite series. In the Canadian 
province farthest from the scene of the Expulsion, 
"Evangeline" has been removed from the school cur- 
riculum, lest it should mislead the youthful subjects 
of the British Crown. " Evangeline " has had the rare 
honour of being translated into French by a French 
Canadian: in 1865, Pamphile Le May published his 
version of it among his "Essais Poetiques." It has 
inspired historical studies like Casgrain's "Peleri- 
nage au Pays d'Evangeline," wherein Longfellow's 
fanciful descriptions of Grand Pre are solemnly taken 
for matter of fact. The Expulsion is the life of the 
provincial historical society, and has been the theme 
of fierce polemic for many years. French and Cath- 
olics take one side, English and Protestants the 
other. "Evangeline" feeds the flame of controversy. 
"Evangeline" has even become a factor in business; 
it figures in countless advertisements. Astute man- 
agers of steamer and railway lines find their account 
in a poem that draws the tourist traffic. Every 
summer thousands of pilgrims from the United 
States crowd to Nova Scotia, and visit Grand Pre 
because it is the scene of Longfellow's touching idyll. 



2o 4 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

Truly these are not slight results from telling a 
story to a literary man, more than half a century 
ago. 

The love of one's own country is a strange and 
beautiful thing. It cannot really concern us what 
was done or suffered by our fellow countrymen a 
century and a half ago; but French and English still 
take sides and wage paper wars over this question 
of the Acadians, their character, their relations with 
the British Government, and the justice or injus- 
tice of their banishment. The expelled Acadians, 
the men who planned the Expulsion, the men who 
carried it out, the men who profited by their removal, 
are all in their graves. 

There let their discord with them die. 

Let us proclaim the truce of God to the combatants 
in this wordy warfare, and try to look at the whole 
matter with clear eyes, unblinded by the mists of 
prejudice and passion. 

II 

Acadia is the name of the old French province, 
with ill-defined boundaries, corresponding roughly 
to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick at the present 
day. The settlers were Acadians, and a hundred 



EVANGELINE 205 

thousand of their descendants are proud to bear 
that distinctive name. They are a people apart, 
and differ widely in character from the French of 
Quebec. The serious "plantation" of the country 
began in 1670, after the Treaty of Breda; and the 
period of French ownership and colonization lasted 
exactly forty years, until the capture of Port Royal 
by Colonel Francis Nicholson and a force of New 
Englanders in 1710. The Acadians held their lands 
from seigneurs to whom they paid "rents" in kind, 
and other feudal dues like lods et ventes, and fines of 
alienation, as in old France. 

The story of French rule in Acadie is not a pleasant 
one, as told with masterly clearness in the pages of 
Parkman. It is a tale of incompetence, corruption, 
and pettiness. The officials were at odds with the 
priests over the liquor traffic with the Indians. As 
the most exposed and vulnerable portion of the French 
possessions, it was raided time and again by expedi- 
tions from New England to avenge the petite guerre 
of privateers and Indian forays from Canada. It 
was only under English rule, in the long peace that 
followed the Treaty of Utrecht, that the Acadians 
increased and multiplied, pressed upon the means of 
subsistence, and swarmed out into new settlements. 
The small English garrison at Annapolis Royal was 
powerless to affect their development, for good or 



206 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

evil ; and this alien people in a corner of the American 
wilderness owed their happiness to the policy of 
Walpole. 

The Acadians enter the world of letters first in 
the pages of Raynal. That unfrocked Jesuit had 
never been in America. His "History of Settlements 
and Trade in the East and West Indies" is largely 
the work of other hands. Diderot is said to have 
written as much as one third of it; and Diderot had 
a definite aim and intention in writing. He wished 
to criticize the existing state of things in France by 
the implicit contrast of a more ideal state of things 
elsewhere. The same motive has been attributed to 
Tacitus in writing his "Germania." As a rebuke to 
a corrupt civilization, both historians paint the pic- 
ture of a primitive society, unspoiled by conventions 
and endowed with the rough and simple virtues. 
Man in a state of nature was a favourite subject of 
the philosophes. Distance lent enchantment. The 
virile Germans dwelt far from Rome, in the forests 
of northern Europe, and the simple Acadians (read 
Arcadians), children of nature, beyond the Atlantic, 
among the few arpents of snow. Raynal was not 
actually the first begetter of this legend of a "lambish 
peple, voyded of alle vyce"; he had something to 
go on, the account of a visiting priest, which he im- 
proved and embroidered. His version is so important, 



EVANGELINE 207 

and so seldom seen that it may be worth while to re- 
produce a few significant parts of it: — 

Not more than five or six English families went over 
to Acadia, which still remained inhabited by the first 
colonists, who were only persuaded to stay upon a prom- 
ise made them of never being compelled to bear arms 
against their ancient country. Such was the attach- 
ment which the French then had for the honour of their 
country. Cherished by the Government, respected by 
foreign nations, and attached to their king by a series 
of prosperities, which rendered their name illustrious and 
aggrandized their power, they possessed that patriotic 
spirit which is the effect of success. They esteemed it 
an honour to bear the name of Frenchmen, and could not 
think of foregoing the title. The Acadians therefore, in 
submitting to a new yoke, had sworn never to bear arms 
against their former standards. 

The neutral French had no other articles to dispose 
of among their neighbours, and made still fewer exchanges 
among themselves, because each separate family was able 
and had been used to provide for its wants. They there- 
fore knew nothing of paper currency, which was so 
common throughout the rest of North America. Even 
the small quantity of specie which had stolen into the 
colony did not promote circulation, which is the greatest 
advantage that can be derived from it. 

Their manners were of course extremely simple. There 
was never a cause, either civil or criminal, of importance 
enough to be carried before the court of judicature at 
Annapolis. Whatever little differences arose from time 
to time among them were amicably adjusted by their 
elders. All their public acts were drawn by their pastors, 
who had likewise the keeping of their wills, for which, 



208 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

and for their religious services, the inhabitants gave them 
a twenty-seventh of their harvests. 

These were sufficient to supply more than a sufficiency 
to fulfil every act of liberality. Real misery was en- 
tirely unknown, and benevolence prevented the demands 
of poverty. Every misfortune was relieved, as it were, 
before it could be felt; and good was universally dis- 
pensed, without ostentation on the part of the giver, 
and without humiliating the person who received. 
The people were, in a word, a society of brethren, 
every individual of which was equally ready to give 
and receive what he thought the common right of 
mankind. 

So perfect a harmony naturally prevented all those 
connections of gallantry which are so often fatal to the 
peace of families. There never was an instance in this 
society of an unlawful commerce between the two sexes. 
This evil was prevented by early marriages; for no one 
passed his youth in a state of celibacy. As soon as a 
young man came to the proper age, the community built 
him a house, broke up the lands about it, and supplied 
him with the necessaries of life for a twelvemonth. Here 
he received the partner he had chosen, and who brought 
him her portion in flocks. This new family grew and 
prospered like the others. They altogether amounted 
to eighteen thousand souls. 

There were twelve or thirteen hundred Acadians 
settled in the capital ; the rest were dispersed in the neigh- 
bouring country. No magistrate was ever appointed to 
rule over them; and they were never made acquainted 
with the laws of England. No rents or taxes of any 
kind were ever exacted from them. Their new sovereign 
seemed to have forgotten them; and they were equally 
strangers to him. 



EVANGELINE 209 

This is about as veracious as Barrere's account of 
the sinking of the Vengeur ; but it serves its end; the 
state of the Acadian habitants was almost the exact 
opposite of the state of the French peasants. Ray- 
nal's literary influence works in a straight line, easily 
traced from end to end. In 1829, Judge Haliburton 
published in two volumes his history of Nova Scotia. 
The author was destined to become famous as the 
creator of "Sam Slick." That a history of this size 
and plan should have been written and published so 
early in the development of so small a community 
as Nova Scotia is a token of the strong local patriot- 
ism which has long characterized that seaboard prov- 
ince. When Haliburton wrote, the modern school 
of history was unborn. Macaulay had not written 
a line of the work that was to displace the novels 
on all the ladies' dressing-tables in England. Free- 
man, Stubbs, and Gardiner were yet to unfold the 
true doctrine of historical accuracy, research, and 
criticism of sources. In Haliburton's time, Hume 
was still the model historian, and Hume wrote 
history lying on a sofa. The "History of Nova 
Scotia" is largely a compilation; the second volume 
is taken over bodily from Bromley; and Akins helped 
to put it together. The continuous narrative ceases 
with 1763; what follows are mere notes, as dry as 
the entries of a mediaeval annalist in his chronicle. 



210 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

At the time of writing the author represented a con- 
stituency largely Acadian, and was their champion 
in the local legislature. He therefore can hardly be 
blamed for copying freely from this passage of 
Raynal's already quoted : — 

Out of olde bookes, in good feith, 
Cometh al this newe science that men lere. 

Now Longfellow used Haliburton in his studies 
for "Evangeline"; but he was not the first American 
to avail himself of this material for the purposes of 
fiction. In 1841, Mrs. Catherine Williams pub- 
lished at Providence a novel called "The Neutral 
French, or the Exiles of Nova Scotia." This tale is 
an interesting illustration of the old robust detesta- 
tion of everything British that flourished in the 
United States well on to the end of the century. 
The preface states expressly that the book is based 
on Haliburton, and further assures the reader that 
"the manner in which he became possessed of most 
of the facts proves most incontestably that it was 
the design of the British Colonial Government at 
least that all memory of this nefarious and dark 
transaction should be forgotten." 

The first part of "The Neutral French" deals with 
the Expulsion, which is avenged in the second part 
by the overthrow of British power at the Revolution. 



EVANGELINE 211 

Chapters have mottoes from "The Deserted Village"; 
and the few rough wood-cut illustrations have been 
taken from some early edition of that famous poem. 
The life of the simple peasants is given an Arcadian 
colouring, anticipating Longfellow's idyll. The con- 
nection is hardly accidental. It has been confidently 
stated that Longfellow used this novel in the com- 
position of "Evangeline." 1 If so, "sweet Auburn" 
must be regarded as the prototype of Grand Pre, 
also the "loveliest village of the plain." Thus "Evan- 
geline" reaches out one hand to "The Deserted Vil- 
lage" and the other to "Hermann und Dorothea." 
The chain of literary causation from Raynal to Long- 
fellow is complete. It would even seem that Hali- 
burton influenced Longfellow, not only directly, but 
also indirectly through the forgotten tale of Mrs. 
Williams. 

Ill 

The great difficulty under which all writers on 
the Acadian question have hitherto laboured is im- 
perfect acquaintance with the original sources of 
information. Though Nova Scotia has a good col- 
lection of materials for a provincial history, com- 
prising nearly six hundred volumes of manuscript, 
carefully arranged, catalogued, and indexed, it has 
1 Cozzens' Acadia, or a Month with the Bluenoses. 



212 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

not been easy of access. An excellent selection from 
these was edited by Akins in 1869, and extensively 
used by Parkman in his "Montcalm and Wolfe," 
The French controversialists accuse Akins of partial- 
ity, and write still under the influence of Raynal, 
Haliburton, and Longfellow. This is not the way to 
arrive at the truth. 

It has been my good fortune during a long resi- 
dence in Nova Scotia to have special opportunities 
for studying the primary authorities; and I have 
edited two volumes of provincial archives. Both 
throw light on the Acadian question. The first is a 
calendar of the governor's letter-books, and a com- 
mission-book kept at Annapolis Royal; the second 
is a verbatim reprint of the minutes of the council. 
Together they cover the period between 17 13 and 
1 741. A study of these documents enables me to 
correct many errors which are confidently repeated 
in book after book. 

It is a thousand pities that neither Longfellow nor 
Parkman ever saw the country they described, par- 
ticularly the sites of the old Acadian parishes. Some 
of their best passages would have gained in vigour 
and colour. Nova Scotia, "that ill-thriven, hard- 
visaged, and ill-favoured brat," as Burke called her, 
is, in fact, largely composed of beauty-spots; and 
the loveliest part is the long, fertile valley of the 



EVANGELINE 213 

Annapolis lying between the North and South 
Mountains, "New England idealized" a Yale profes- 
sor called it, with the scenery of the Connecticut in 
mind. And of all the valley — the Happy Valley, 
with its thrifty orchards and fruit farms — the most 
beautiful part is the old town of Annapolis Royal 
and its "banlieue." 

Grand Pre is classic ground; the great, wind-swept 
reaches of meadow and marsh-land beside the blue 
waters of Minas Basin, the desolation of the old 
French wiilows about the village well, are haunted 
with the sense of tears; but Annapolis town with its 
long, bowery street, its gardens and hedges, is a 
jewel for beauty and a hundredfold richer in his- 
torical associations. I shall never forget my first 
impression of the "garrison," as the old fort area is 
still called. The river was full from brim to brim with 
the red Fundy tide. The farther shore, "the Gran- 
ville side," showed dim and shadowy and rich. 
Down the long street came a singing, tambourine- 
playing detachment of the Salvation Army. It was 
from that ground that Nicholson's New Englanders 
advanced in triumph on the fort; there Rednap 
planted his batteries, and Du Vivier's Indians and 
Acadians attempted in vain to dislodge old Mas- 
carene from his crumbling ramparts. 

On the bridge across the ditch from the main gate, 



2i 4 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

a boy and girl were talking and laughing as the sun 
set, making love, I suppose. Here gallant Subercase 
and his tiny foree, after sustaining two sieges, man hod 
out with the honours of war, drums beating and col- 
ours Hying, between the lines of British grenadiers, 
when the white tlag with the golden lilies came down 
for the last time on the 16th of October, 1710. In the 
twilight, a single ghostly sail glided up to the old, 
ruinous Queen's Wharf. This very defile saw Cham- 
plain's sails, Morpain's pirates, the quaint, high- 
sterned, dumpy craft of the seventeenth and eight- 
eenth centuries, little French and English armadas of 
Sedgewick ami Phips, La Tour and Charnisay. There 
at that very landing, the annual supply-ship from 
England discharged each autumn her nine months' 
scant allowance for the hungry garrison. 

The fort itself is a Vauban plan, with a couple of 
ravelins added after the British occupation. The 
French engineers knew how to pick a site. This sandy 
hill looks over the Annapolis Basin, which defends it 
on one side, as the marsh and the little Lequille guard 
the other. The little town crouches in the lee of its 
defences; but it was sometimes taken in reverse. 
Within these walls, for forty years, one British gov- 
ernor after another laboured to hold the province for 
England, planned, diplomatized, held courts of jus- 
tice, sustained sieges, gathered the king's rents, and 



EVANGELINE 215 

strove to rule Acadie as an English province. Here 
Governor Armstrong, old and moody, "subject to 
fits of melancholy," was found dead in his bed with 
five wounds in his breast from his own sword, so reso- 
lute was he to have done with this unprofitable life. 
The hero of the whole occupation is Paul Mascarene, 
from the old Huguenot city of Castres. Wise, firm, 
capable, he has every one's good word. In 1710, he 
mounted the first guard in the captured fort. Thirty- 
nine years later, "old and crazy," as the brisk new 
governor called him, he marched the veterans of 
Philipps's regiment a hundred miles through the for- 
est, to lay down his powers in the new capital of the 
province, which was building on the western shore 
of Chebucto Bay. 

This pretty town, with memories of nearly three 
centuries, marked the headwaters of the stream of 
Acadian colonization. The original settlers came 
from lands about Rochelle, and here they found broad 
flats beside tidal waters, which they tilled as in old 
France. Between 1670 and 1755, one long lifetime, 
they increased from some three hundred souls to 
more than three times as many thousands. Within 
the shelter of Walpole's long peace, they multiplied 
rapidly and spread up the river, beside Minas Basin, 
across the Bay of Fundy. 



216 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

IV 

Their civil organization was mediaeval. They were 
liegemen of their seigneurs, to whom, as well as to the 
king, they paid annual dues. Acadie was "a feudal 
colony in America," as Rameau names it. Captured 
in 1 710, Port Royal was only formally ceded to Eng- 
land with the rest of Acadie, by the Treaty of Utrecht. 
Louis XIV was loath to part with it, for reasons 
easily understood. Acadie with Cape Breton was the 
extreme left, as Louisiana was the extreme right, of 
French power in America. It was nearest to France, 
the base of supplies, and nearest to the hated Bas- 
tonnais. 1 Acadie and Cape Breton were the outworks 
of Quebec, the citadel of New France; and from them 
it was easiest to strike New England. Ceded, how- 
ever, the territory was by the twelfth article of this 
same treaty, which made it impossible that the Aca- 
dians could ever have been "neutral French," as they 
have been called. By international law, then as now, 
the people go with the territory. 

The British governors spent much time in trying 
to persuade them to take an oath of allegiance, and 
at last they succeeded; but no oath was necessary. 
How Louis XIV would have laughed, after the cession 
of Alsace and Lorraine in 1681, to be told that the 
1 So the Acadians still call the Bostonnais, or Americans. 



EVANGELINE 217 

population were now "neutral Germans." When the 
same provinces were handed back to Germany in 187 1, 
what diplomat would have called their inhabitants 
"neutral French," or pretended that they were exempt 
from the necessity of bearing arms against France? 
Oath, or no oath, the Acadians in 17 13 became British 
subjects, and if French emissaries, military, political, 
and ecclesiastical, had let them alone, there would 
have been no Expulsion and no "Evangeline." 

The British administration of the province was a 
curious experiment. A handful of army officers tried 
to give an alien population civil government. Their 
efforts, though unsuccessful, illustrate the ingrained 
British respect for law and for legal forms. All power 
was vested in the governor and his council. For the 
greatest part of this period, the governor, Philipps, a 
peppery old Welshman, who lived to be over ninety, 
dwelt in England, leaving the province in charge of 
a lieutenant-governor, who was always an officer in 
his regiment stationed in the fort. The council's 
functions were chiefly advisory. The French inhabi- 
tants, being Catholics, could not, according to the law 
of England, vote or enjoy representative institutions. 

They did, however, at the command of the governor, 
elect deputies, six or eight to the district. In order 
that each in turn might share the honour and burden 
of office, new deputies were chosen annually, on the 



2i 8 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

nth of October, when the crops were all in. These 
representatives of the people were to be men of prop- 
erty, the "ancientest" men, "honest, discreet, and un- 
derstanding." On election, the new-made deputies 
were to come to the seat of government, with two of 
the outgoing members, to receive the governor's ap- 
probation and orders. They acted as intermediaries 
between the Government and the habitants, and were 
responsible for the order and good behaviour of their 
several districts. They were required to carry out the 
decisions of the General Court, and enforce the proc- 
lamations of the governor. These were read out on 
Sunday after mass and affixed to the " mass-house" 
door. Sometimes the deputies had to act as arbitra- 
tors and examine disputed lands; or inspect roads and 
dikes; or assist the surveyor in determining bounda- 
ries. They had no powers save those conferred by 
the Government, but they were a fairly effective lever 
wherewith to move the mass of the population. Brit- 
ish authority was never powerful. At first, it did not 
extend, in the picturesque phrase of the time, "be- 
yond a cannon-shot from the walls of the fort." As 
time went on, it became supreme about Annapolis 
Royal, but it diminished in direct ratio to the distance 
from the centre. It was weak at Minas, weaker at 
Cobequid. At Chignecto it had reached the vanish- 
ing point. 



EVANGELINE 219 

It is often stated that there was no taxation of the 
Acadians by the British Government; but such is not 
the case. By 1730, the seigneurial rights of the various 
proprietors had been bought up by the Crown, and a 
determined effort was made to collect, for the benefit 
of His Britannic Majesty, all quit-rents, homages, 
and services of whatever kind, formerly paid to their 
respective seigneurs by the French of Minas and other 
places on the Bay of Fundy. The legal tender was 
" Boston money," which the Acadians would not 
take, preferring the French currency brought in by 
their clandestine trade with Cape Breton, which was 
hoarded and sent to Boston to be exchanged. These 
feudal dues were payable in the old days at the seig- 
neur's mansion, "in kind," — wheat and capons and 
partridges. 

• "Rent-gatherers" were appointed for the different 
districts. Alexandre Bourg de Bellehumeur, a former 
seigneur, was "Procoureur du Roy" at Minas. He 
was to render an account twice a year, to keep a rent- 
roll, to give proper receipts, and to pay over only to 
duly legalized authorities. He was to pay himself by 
retaining three shillings out of every pound. All the 
"contracts" were to be brought in to the governor, so 
that he might satisfy himself what was legally due 
in each case. There were naturally refusals, excuses, 
and delays, but rents were collected. After seven 



220 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

years, Bourg was replaced by Mangeant, who had fled 
from Quebec after killing his man in a duel. Three 
years later, Mangeant left the country, and Bourg 
was reinstated by Mascarene. Other "rent-gather- 
ers" were Prudent Robichau for Annapolis Royal and 
the "banlieue," John Duon for the district along the 
river, and for Chignecto, James O'Neal, surgeon, from 
Cork, who had studied medicine at the college of 
Lombard at Paris and married an Acadian girl. 

All these "rent-gatherers" were also notaries pub- 
lic. Besides their rent-rolls, they were to keep proper 
books of account, to take particular notice of all sales 
and exchanges, by whom and to whom alienated and 
transferred, to prevent frauds by clandestine deeds 
of exchange, to notify the Provincial Secretary of all 
sales, conveyances, mortgages, and agreements of ex- 
change, that they might be properly registered, to 
report the presence of strangers, and to take cogni- 
zance of births, deaths, and wills, that intentions of 
testators might be duly carried out. This is civil ad- 
ministration in outline. Underlying all is a simple 
desire to establish law and order and to do justice 
between man and man. 



Another erroneous statement frequently made is 
that the Acadians had few disputes, and those they 



EVANGELINE 221 

brought to their parish priests for settlement. The 
fact is that these French peasants came to the British 
power for justice almost as soon as it was established 
in the land. The beginning of civil, as distinguished 
from martial, law under British rule is due to the 
humanity and, good sense of a forgotten lieutenant- 
governor, Thomas Caulfeild. He was apparently a 
cadet of the noble house of Charlemont, an old soldier 
who had seen service under Peterborough in Spain. 
He writes that he is "buried alive" in Nova Scotia, 
and he dies there in debt incurred in the maintenance 
of the Government. In a despatch to the Lords of 
Trade he states that there are no courts of judicature 
here. Evidently in the opinion of his superior officer, 
the hot-tempered and overbearing Nicholson, he had 
exceeded his powers, for Caulfeild writes further that 
he has tried to suit both parties, but that Nicholson 
asked to see the commission that authorized him to 

ch 

do justice in civil affairs; "to w „ I answered that as 
I had y e Honour to Command in y e absence of y e 
Governor I Should allways endeavour to Cultivate 
as good an Understanding amongst y e People as pos- 
sible believeing the same essential for his maj ies Serv- 
ice, and tho' I had no Com 11 for that Effect yet I 
held myself blamable to Suffer Injustice to be done 
before me without taking Notice thereof, haveing 
Never Interposed farther than by y e Consent of both 



222 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

Partyes." ' And he asks for instructions "on that 
head." 

Caulfeild died soon after this, but apparently his 
suggestion did not fall to the ground. The fifth ar- 
ticle of the next governor's commission empowered 
him "to adjudge and settle all claims and disputes 
in regard to land in the province." In the Broad 
Seal commission extending his powers, he is to "settle 
all questions of inheritance." Accordingly, Philipps 
writes to the Secretary of State that the governor and 
council have constituted themselves into a court on 
the model of the General Court of Virginia, to meet 
four times a year; for the idea that military govern- 
ment alone prevails, keeps settlers out of the country. 
Three members of the council were commissioned 
justices of the peace and empowered "to Examine 
and Enquire into all Pleas, Debates and Differences 
that are or may be amongst the inhabitants of Said 
Province." Ten years later, the governor writes to 
the notary of Minas regarding the people of that dis- 
trict and other distant parts of the province "com- 
ing in daily," with complaints against their neighbors, 
and failing to warn the "adverse partys" of their 
intentions. The determination to follow the forms 
of law and to act fairly is unmistakable even without 
the express declaration at the end: "I and the gentle- 
men of the Council have no other Intention than to 



EVANGELINE 223 

do Justice Impartially to you all." Next year he 
repeats his instructions to Bourg. If the defendants 
refuse to appear, the plaintiffs are to have certificates 
from the notary to that effect. The reason given is 
surely adequate: "The great Charge that persons 
praying for justice are put to By their Expensive 
Journeys from Such Remote parts of the Province as 
Yours." 

The preamble to a general proclamation dated 
January 13, 1737-38, throws further light on the 
matter. It recites how it has been "customary" 
hitherto for the inhabitants to come to the governor 
and council for justice at all times, and, from "Ig- 
norance or Design," fail to summon the defendants. 
This practice "hath been Exclaimed against by Sev- 
eral of the Inhabitants themselves not only as hurt- 
full & prejudicial to their private & Domestick affairs 
to be thus Hurried & Impeded by their Impatient, 
Cruel & Letigeous Neighbours, but even also very 
Troublesome, fatigueing and Inconvenient to the 
Governor & Council to be meeting daily and almost 
constantly to the Prejudice many times of their own 
Private Affairs to hear and examine their many frivo- 
lous and undigested complaints." 

The proclamation accordingly fixes four days in 
the year for the hearing of causes, the first Tuesday 
in March and May and the last Tuesday in July and 



224 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

November. This is simply varying the dates fixed 
by Philipps in 172 1. The chief point in the proclama- 
tion is an order that plaintiffs must lodge their com- 
plaints at the office of the Provincial Secretary and 
apply to him for the necessary summons to be sent 
to the defendants, in order that the latter might have 
at least three weeks' notice of proceedings against 
them. Again the aim is plainly to make procedure 
regular and to keep down the number of "frivolous 
and undigested complaints." That these were a real 
annoyance is clear from the irritable tone of the 
wording. 

Not only was this administration of justice burden- 
some and forced upon the council by the nature of 
the Acadians, but it was carried on for years without 
fee or reward. In 1738, Armstrong and his council 
sent an important memorial to Philipps, in which 
they state that they have to the utmost of their ca- 
pacity and power endeavoured to discharge their 
duty by an equal and impartial administration of 
justice, "Having never had any advantage or Salary 
for Our Acting as Members of his Majesty's Council 
for this Province." 

These documents, which he never saw, more than 
justify Parkman in his general statement, "They 
were vexed with incessant quarrels among themselves 
arising from the unsettled boundaries of their lands." 



EVANGELINE 225 

Richard, in quoting this passage, asks, "Could it be 
otherwise when the population was four times as large 
as it had been in 1713, when these lands had been 
divided and subdivided so as to leave nothing but 
morsels, and when the lands had never been surveyed 
by Government?" Here he is misled by Haliburton, 
who writes, "They had long since been refused adjud- 
ication upon their disputes in the local courts; their 
boundaries and the titles to their said lands were con- 
sequently in great confusion." Both have erred 
through ignorance of the sources. The truth is the 
very opposite. The courts did "adjudicate " and their 
lands were surveyed. 

VI 

As early as 1728, David Dunbar, Esq., surveyor- 
general of His Majesty's woods in North America, is 
made surveyor of His Majesty's woods in Nova Sco- 
tia, — a very different place, apparently. His special 
duty was to set apart lands most fit to produce masts 
and timber for the royal navy. Dunbar appointed 
George Mitchell, "gentleman," his deputy. In 1732, 
Mitchell reported to Governor Armstrong the surveys 
he had made in the province between the Kennebec 
and St. Croix Rivers. Six townships had been laid 
out. 

An order of Armstrong's dated July 20, 1733, directs 



226 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

Mitchell to survey the land on both sides of the An- 
napolis River, "from the Gutt upwards, Duely Dis- 
tinguishing the Uninhabited lands from those belong- 
ing to the property of any particular person, whose 
Estates you are also to Survey, and to mark out the 
uncultivated lands of Each Estate from those that 
are Improven or inclosed." His discoveries in regard 
to wood and soil are to be transmitted to the Lords 
of Trade. Dunbar's instructions to Mitchell to pro- 
ceed to Annapolis Royal, dated at Boston three years 
previous, direct him to report to the governor and 
show his commission and papers. His primary duty 
as king's surveyor is to select areas of large timber, 
particularly white pine, for masting, but if the situa- 
tion of crown lands will interfere with settlements, 
he is to consult with the governor and report all such 
cases, duly attested, to Dunbar. He is to keep reg- 
ular plans carefully in a special book, to make a plan 
and survey for each grantee, and also a detailed copy 
of each in the book aforesaid. The survey was in- 
tended to be careful and thorough. 

Mitchell had a guard of soldiers given him against 
the Indians, as many as could be spared, and set to 
work. With the suspicion of peasants, the Acadians 
opposed the survey, and a special order had to be 
issued to them, to mark out their boundaries. By 
April, 1734, Mitchell had completed his task, and 



EVANGELINE 227 

was ordered by Armstrong to continue his work 
throughout the French settlements, as specified, all 
round the Bay of Fundy. Mitchell was employed 
apparently until 1735, after which Lieutenant Am- 
hurst acted as deputy surveyor. In 1739, Shirreff, 
the secretary, received strict orders from Armstrong 
to make out no patent except on the survey of Colonel 
Dunbar or of one of his deputies. The preamble shows 
that the greatest care was taken with the grants and 
surveys. 

The failure to assist in the work of the survey by 
planting stakes in their boundaries shows the char- 
acter of the Acadians. They were French peasants 
of the eighteenth century, with no little admixture 
of Indian blood. They were simple, pious, and frugal; 
but they had the faults of their kind; they were 
ignorant and uneducated; few could even sign their 
names. They were led by their priests, who were 
naturally and inevitably political agents for France. 
In mental make, they must have been much the 
same as the peasants described by Arthur Young, 
except that they were not taxed to death to support 
a worthless king and court. They had the peasant's 
hunger for land, the peasant's petty cunning, the 
peasant's greed, all perfectly comprehensible in view 
of their hard, narrow life of toil. Their disputes over 
land were endless. Besides, the Government had 



228 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

to take action against the use of fraudulent half- 
bushel measures, against cheating in the length of 
cord-wood, against "clandestine deeds" and unlawful 
transfers of land. Proclamations were issued against 
neglect of fences, and failure to repair dikes. It was 
necessary to repeat orders frequently, for the obsti- 
nacy of the Acadian is proverbial. One ordinance for- 
bade wild young fellows catching the horses loose in 
the fields and riding them about, to their great injury. 
Even Acadian boys would be boys. It must have been 
the dash of Indian blood that drove them to this 
prank, as it drove others to join Du Vivier against 
Mascarene, or to capture the vessel that was carrying 
them away from Acadie, or to live by privateering 
along the Gulf shore after the Expulsion. The Aca- 
dians were not the Arcadians of Raynal and Long- 
fellow. They were human. 

The character of the people, however, was hardly 
a factor in the political problem. Left to themselves, 
there would have been no problem. Such as it was, 
the mild, just English rule was solving it. The diffi- 
culties arose from the fact that the Acadians were 
French and Catholic in a province actually British 
and Protestant. That there should have been con- 
stant clashing between the Government and the 
priests should surprise no one. Grant them human, 



EVANGELINE 229 

with opposing national ends to advance, and the 
struggle follows as a matter of course. 

Reverse the situation. Imagine Massachusetts con- 
quered by France, ceded to her, and Boston held by 
a weak French garrison, powerless for good or evil, but 
maintaining a form of government. Imagine the 
Puritans guaranteed the exercise of their religion, but 
their ministers subject to the approval of a Vaudreuil 
or a Bigot. If the French historians, Rameau, Cas- 
grain, Richard, had approached the subject after 
forming this mental picture, they would have taken 
a more charitable view of the English treatment of 
Acadie. One thing is unimaginable — that the men 
of Massachusetts would not meet and organize and 
fight. 

The difficulty lay deeper still. The Acadians were 
moved helplessly hither and thither by hands far 
away in Quebec, in Versailles, in " the high chess game, 
whereof the pawn are men." They were mere tools of 
French policy, to be used, broken, and thrown aside 
in the secular struggle with England for the suprem- 
acy of the New World. But who will dare to re-tell 
the story that Parkman has told once for all? 

Thanks to "Evangeline," the Expulsion will never 
be understood, That poem is responsible for the the- 
ory that the measure was a brutal, wanton, motive- 
less, irrational act of a tyrannical power upon an in- 



230 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

nocent people; and that power was Great Britain. 
Ultimately it was the action of the Home Govern- 
ment, for no colonial governor would have incurred 
the expense, — for it cost money even in the eight- 
eenth century to transport nine thousand people hun- 
dreds of miles, — to say nothing of the responsibility, 
without express orders. 

But the plain truth is that New England must 
share that responsibility. The idea of the "removal" 
originated with Shirley, and the Governor of Massa- 
chusetts was urged repeatedly by him. The actual 
work of collecting the Acadian at Grand Pre was done 
by Winslow, a New England man. The firm that char- 
tered the ships to carry them off was the well-known 
Boston firm of Apthorpe and Hancock. The Expul- 
sion was not a local measure; it was for the defence 
of New England and all the other British colonies in 
America, as well as for Nova Scotia. The actual 
work of removing the unfortunate people was not 
harshly done. They were protected from the soldiers. 
As far as possible, families and villages were kept 
together on the transports. 

VII 

The Expulsion can be understood only in relation 
to the larger events of which it was a part. In 1755, 



EVANGELINE 231 

England and France were preparing for the Seven 
Years' War, the climax of their century of conflict for 
America. It was a tremendous struggle, though its 
importance is obscured by the Revolutionary and 
Napoleonic wars. It gave England America and 
India; it drove France from two continents. On this 
side of the Atlantic, the war had actually begun, for 
Boscawen had captured the Alcide and the Lys, and 
Braddock had been routed on the Monongahela. 
The war had begun, and begun with a great defeat 
for England; no one could tell how it would end. 

In Nova Scotia, one corner of the world-wide battle- 
field, the British situation was anything but safe or 
reassuring. The French population outnumbered the 
English more than two to one. The great French 
fortress of Louisbourg was a city of ten thousand in- 
habitants. Twenty years of labour and millions of 
livres had been spent on its fortifications, which even 
in their ruins look formidable. It was the best-de- 
fended city in America except Quebec; and it was 
within easy striking distance of Halifax, the newly 
founded seat of British power. "The Dunkirk of 
America," it was stronger than ever, and was receiv- 
ing supplies constantly from the Acadians. 

French emissaries were busy among these unfor- 
tunate people, as they had been for forty years, teach- 
ing them that they had never ceased to be subjects of 



232 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

the King of France, that the return of the Pretender 
would restore Acadie to the French Crown, that re- 
maining under British authority would mean loss of 
their priests, loss of their sacraments, loss of salvation. 
The infamous Le Loutre had forced many to retire 
to French territory, and they were in arms just across 
the border. 

Acadians had joined invading French forces more 
than once. In view of the inevitable war, the pres- 
ence of such a population, ten thousand French, at the 
gates of Halifax, with their Indian allies murdering 
and scalping just outside the pickets, was a danger of 
the first magnitude. To disregard it was to court 
defeat, for the garrison at Halifax was thrust far up 
into the power of France, a nut in the jaws of a nut- 
cracker. There was no force to bridle the Acadians. 
Fair words and fair measures had been exhausted. 
Nothing remained but to remove them out of the 
province. 

Their deportation was a military necessity. It was 
cruel, as all war is cruel ; the innocent suffered as they 
do in all war. The measure was precautionary, like 
cutting down trees and levelling houses outside a 
fort that expects a siege, to afford the coming foe no 
shelter, and to give the garrison a clear field of fire. 



EVERYBODY'S ALICE 



EVERYBODY'S ALICE 



EXACTLY forty-nine years ago, a little book 
was published in London, called "Alice's Ad- 
ventures in Wonderland" which almost at once 
became a nursery classic. The copy used in the 
preparation of this discourse bears a recent date. 
It is the property of a young lady whom I know 
very well, and whom, as she has kindly allowed me 
to make the freest use of her treasure and has as- 
sisted me in other ways, it is simply my duty to thank 
publicly. The state of this precious document is, 
I regret to say, far from satisfactory. It seems to 
have been very intently if not judiciously studied, 
if the usual inferences may be drawn from the loos- 
ened covers, the dog's-ears, and the thumb-marks 
along the margins. Several pages are altogether 
missing, and I should have been at a serious loss in 
consequence, had it not been for my young friend, 
who was able from her intimate knowledge of the 
text, to fill up the gaps in the narrative by oral reci- 
tation. From this mutilated copy, I have gleaned 
the following interesting facts regarding the popu- 

235 



236 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

larity of this important work. Although appearing 
in an expensive form, no fewer than eighty-three 
thousand copies had been sold by 189 1. Of a cheaper 
" people's edition," twenty-four thousand copies were 
insufficient to supply the demand within four years 
of the first issue; and the sale still goes on. 

More recently it has been published in a still cheaper 
form for sixpence, not to mention the pirated edi- 
tions. By this date, nearly half a million copies of 
the book must be in circulation; and it is safe to say 
that at least five times that number of children have 
been made happy by its perusal. Nor is the boon 
confined to English children. Little Germans may 
read "Alices Abenteuer im Wunderland " ; French 
children, "Aventures d Alice au Pays des Mer- 
veilles"; and little Italians, "Le Awenture d' Alice 
nel Paese delle Meraviglie." In a word, its reputa- 
tion is European. 

Nor is it a favourite in the nursery alone; it has 
penetrated into almost every department of English 
thought. The periodical press of the last twenty 
years teems with allusions to this curious production. 
A quotation from it is almost as readily understood 
as a tag from "Hamlet"; and the little heroine her- 
self has joined that undying band of shadows, who 
live only in books and are yet so much more real to 
us than nine-tenths of the men and women we pass 



EVERYBODY'S ALICE 237 

every day upon the street. The "Saturday Review" 
is not too cynical, the "Thunderer" too serious, the 
"Quarterly" too starch, nor the "Nation" too 
morose to point some of their best sentences with 
allusions to the sayings or doings of Alice, a child. 
She has invaded the classroom of the college; and 
the ordinary course in metaphysics is rather incom- 
plete without her. The prim textbook even admits 
her within its bounds and is brighter for her presence. 
The only instance of any objection being raised 
comes from a very famous city in the West. There, 
some very wise parent found fault with what may be 
called the ww-natural history of the book; and pro- 
tested against the famous statement about the little 
crocodile improving his shining tail, as calculated 
to mislead the infant mind. This is, I fear, too 
good to be true even for the meridian of Chicago, 
though we know that very peculiar things do happen 
in that wonderful city. I am haunted by the fear 
that this sapient papa or mamma, who wrote to the 
papers, will upon investigation prove to be only 
some ingenious reporter short of "copy"; and a 
good story will be for ever spoiled. Let us hope that 
this legend will never be subjected to the ordeal of 
the Higher Criticism. Apart from this, however, 
there has never been a discordant note in the uni- 
versal chorus of praise. 



238 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

II 

The question naturally arises, What is the cause 
of this widespread popularity? What is there in the 
little book to make it a favourite not only with chil- 
dren everywhere, but with learned professors, busy 
journalists, men of the world? The book consists 
of less than two hundred loosely printed pages, and 
nearly fifty pictures encroach seriously upon the 
letter-press. Any one can run through it in an hour. 
Clearly, then, it is not imposing size and solidity 
which have made it famous. Still less is its theme 
of a kind to attract general attention. What is it 
about? To do more than allude to the main outlines 
of such a classic tale is surely unnecessary, in any 
English-speaking audience. Every one knows how 
Alice sat beside her sister on that memorable sum- 
mer's afternoon when the White Rabbit ran by, 
looking at his watch ; and how she followed him down 
the rabbit hole, falling and falling, until she landed 
at last safely in the land of wonders. Every one 
knows what happened, when Alice drank from the 
little bottle which had a "mixed flavour of cherry- 
tart, custard, pine-apple, roast turkey, toffee and 
hot buttered toast"; and when she and the Mouse 
met in the Pool of Tears; and when the draggled 
animals organized the caucus race. It is almost 



EVERYBODY'S ALICE 239 

proof of an imperfect education to be ignorant of 
how the Rabbit sent in a little bill, how the senten- 
tious and short-tempered Caterpillar ordered Alice 
about and gave her good advice, or how the Duchess 
and the Cook with the penchant for pepper in the 
soup treated the baby that Alice rescued. A writer 
is, of course, a privileged person, but there are limits 
to the liberties he may take, and to assume that to 
you, Gentle Reader, the Mad Tea-Party, the Queen's 
croquet-ground, the Mock-Turtle's story, the Lobster 
Quadrille, the trial of the Knave of Hearts are names 
and nothing more is like insinuating your ignorance 
of the multiplication-table. 

Why the book finds favour with the little ones is 
no mystery. They have all Alice's preference for 
a book with pictures and conversation: and here 
they find both in plenty. The story is a real story. 
There are no digressions, no repelling paragraphs of 
solid information, no morals except the delightful 
aphorisms of the Duchess. Something is continually 
happening; and that something is always marvel- 
lous. Children are the fairest and frankest critics 
in the world. They have no preconceived notions, 
no theories of art, no clique politics to hamper their 
judgments. Of the jargon of criticism they know not 
a word; but they have by nature a firm grip of the 
maxim that there is only one style of writing which 



2 4 o LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

is inadmissible, — the tiresome. One infallible rule 
they apply to their books, "Are they interesting?" 
No other considerations have the slightest weight 
with them, not the author's zeal, not his knowledge, 
not his reputation, not tenderness for his feelings, 
as when little Anne Thackeray asked her father why 
he did not write stories like "David Copperfield." 
To have won their suffrages by a brand-new fairy- 
tale is an achievement of which any man might be 
proud. Most nursery legends are seemingly as old 
as the race and made according to a few well-worn 
patterns. It is only at the rarest intervals that any 
addition is made to the small stock of world-wide 
fable. 

The charm which "Alice" possesses for children 
of a larger growth is more manifold, but still easy 
to trace out. There are happily many who never 
quite lose the heart of the child in the grown man 
or woman, who never grow old, whose souls remain 
fresh and unhardened after half a century of rough 
contact with this work-a-day world. They under- 
stand the story of the French king who was dis- 
covered by the dignified foreign ambassador, play- 
ing horse on all fours with some riotous young 
princelings. Far from being confused, or offering 
apology, he merely asked the stranger if he were 
a father, and on learning that he was, said, — 



EVERYBODY'S ALICE 241 

"In that case, we'll have another turn round the 
room." 

Over a child's story-book, they can dream them- 
selves back again into their childhood as Chamisso 
says, and be all the better for it. Again, " Alice's 
Adventures" reveals a quite unusual aptitude for 
being read a second time, and a third, and so on in- 
definitely. This is not the result of chance. This 
artlessly artful narrative is the outcome of much 
thought and labour on the part of the writer; but, 
as Thoreau says of Carlyle, the filings and sweepings 
and tools are hidden far away in the workshop and 
the finished, polished product is all we are permitted 
to see. Considered merely as a piece of clear, straight- 
forward, idiomatic English, this little book is not 
unworthy to rank with such masterpieces as "Robin- 
son Crusoe" and "The Pilgrim's Progress." The 
story runs on so smoothly, the marvels dawn upon 
us so clearly and succeed one another so swiftly, the 
interest is so absorbing, that it is only by a strong 
effort that we can wrench our attention away from 
the illusion to consider the means by which the illusion 
is produced. Such books are not made every day. 
As Sheridan said, "Easy reading is extremely hard 
writing"; only he employed a more energetic adverb 
than is agreeable to ears polite. It is, therefore, not 
surprising to learn that the present story represents 



242 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

what German critics call an Uberarbeitung, or work- 
ing over of previous material, and that the book 
begun in 1862 was not really finished until three 
years later. 

Ill 

Apart from its fascination as a story and the 
artistic pleasure arising from the contemplation of 
skilful workmanship, there are other reasons why 
grown-up readers find their account in a child's 
story-book. For one thing, it possesses humour. I 
do not mean to say that young readers are entirely 
unaware of its presence in the book. On the contrary, 
though I speak under correction as one who is not 
a psychologist, I hold that one of the first facul- 
ties the infant mind develops is a sense of humour. 
Practical jokes, even at their own expense, will 
make babies laugh long before they can walk or 
talk; and they soon discover the inexhaustible fun 
of existence in such a topsy-turvy world as this. At 
the same time, in their love of the wonderful, young 
readers hurry over places where the more mature 
love to dwell. For instance, there was once a kind 
of book for young persons, now happily extinct, 
which adopted an insufferably patronizing air; every 
normal child must have resented it strongly. The 
condescending tone of these sermonettes is caught 



EVERYBODY'S ALICE 243 

in such a passage as this: Alice hesitates about 
following the plain direction, "DRINK ME!" on 
the label of a wonderful bottle. 

"No, I'll look first," she said, "and see whether 
it's marked, 'poison' or not"; for she had read several 
nice little stories about children who had got burnt, 
and eaten up by wild beasts, and many other unpleasant 
things, all because they would not remember the simple 
rules their friends had taught them: such as, that a red- 
hot poker will burn you if you hold it too long; and that 
if you cut your finger very deeply with a knife, it usually 
bleeds; and she had never forgotten that, if you drink' 
much from a bottle marked "poison," it is most cer- 
tain to disagree with you sooner or later. 

More obvious is the caricature, when the game is 
goody-goody little verses, under the tyranny of which 
so many generations of children groaned in vain. 
We do not teach our children the "little busy bee" 
now-a-days. By slow degrees, we have come to see 
that suggestion of beauty, the charm of word-music, 
is not thrown away on the young growing mind; 
and that the best is not too good for the children. 
A comparison of such a collection as Mrs. Wood's 
"A Child's First Book of Verse," with any of the 
old anthologies "For Infant Minds," shows the 
difference between ancient and modern points of 
view. Dr. Watts had never been parodied before; 
but who will deny that he deserved to be? Alice, 



244 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

after having suffered many rapid and surprising 
changes in size, is striving to establish to herself her 
own identity. All her intellectual tests break down. 
In vain she tries to remember lessons in geography 
and arithmetic. In vain she attempts to repeat 
"the little busy bee." The words will not come 
right. 

"How doth the little crocodile 

Improve his shining tail, 
And pour the waters of the Nile 

On every golden scale! 

"How cheerfully he seems to grin, 
How neatly spreads his claws, 
And welcomes little fishes in, 
With gently smiling jaws!" 

Equally delicious is the parody of Southey's "Father 
William." Every one knows the improving colloquy 
between the young man with the inquiring mind and 
the eccentric sage. It is hard to say which are most 
absurd, the questions of the young yokel, or the old 
gentleman's replies. 

"You are old, Father William," the young man said, 

"And your hair has become very white; 
And yet you incessantly stand on your head — 

Do you think at your age it is right? " 

"In my youth," Father William replied to his son, 

"I feared it might injure the brain; 
But now that I'm perfectly sure I have none, 

Why, I do it again and again." 



EVERYBODY'S ALICE 245 

And so the improving conversation goes on from the 
question of the back somersault in at the door and 
the demolition of the goose "with the bones and the 
beak," to the climax: — 

"You are old," said the youth; "one would hardly suppose 

That your eye was as steady as ever; 
Yet you balance an eel on the end of your nose — 

What made you so awfully clever?" 

It is only the other day that "Punch" had a set of 
verses on the German Emperor in the same strain, 
beginning, — 

You are young, Kaiser William. 

It would not be Wonderland if matters took their 
natural course; and poor Alice's attempt to recite 
"The Voice of the Sluggard" is as unfortunate as 
her former efforts. 

"'T is the voice of the Lobster; I heard him declare, 
'You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair.' 
As a duck with its eyelids, so he with his nose 
Trims his belt and his buttons, and turns out his toes." 

Her audience is anxious for an explanation. "But 
about his toes?" the Mock-Turtle persisted. "How 
could he turn them out with his nose, you know?" 
"It's the first position in dancing," Alice said; but 



246 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

was dreadfully puzzled by it all and longed to change 
the subject. 

I notice that in later editions this immortal stanza 
is continued, and a second one even added: most 
unwisely, I should say. Nothing can surpass the 
exquisite topsy-turviness of the first quatrain. There 
is just a sufficient show of meaning to lure the mind 
on, in the hope of finding more. The end of the pleas- 
ant teasing is bafflement and agreeably provoking 
excitement. 

There are other points less obvious than these, 
which the younger generation of readers or listeners 
is almost sure to miss; but which catch the attention 
of their elders. It is hardly to be expected that chil- 
dren should see the fun of the Mouse's expedient for 
drying the bedraggled animals which have just es- 
caped the Pool of Tears. This is to read aloud the 
driest thing it knows, namely, a passage from a cer- 
tain famous historian, which our author wickedly 
quotes verbatim. Children will not perceive the satiric 
intention in the turn given to stock English phrases 
which have been worn threadbare in everyday use. 
From human lips, they are simply commonplace; 
but coming from the curious denizens of Wonderland, 
they sound irresistibly droll. Such is the remark of 
the Lory, who clinches an argument with "I am 
older than you and ought to know better"; and then 



EVERYBODY'S ALICE 247 

positively refuses to tell its age. Such are the set 
speeches of the Dodo, who is the representative Eng- 
lish committee-man. The extract from Hallam fails 
to dry the Mouse's audience. 

"In that case," said the Dodo solemnly, rising to its 
feet, "I move that the meeting adjourn, for; the imme- 
diate adoption of more energetic remedies — " 

"Speak English!" said the Eaglet. "I don't know 
the meaning of half those long words, and what's more, 
I don't believe you do either." 

The jeer startles the Dodo out of his pomposity 
into something like a natural and direct manner of 
speaking. 

"What I was going to say," said the Dodo in an 
offended tone, "was that the best thing to get us dry 
would be a Caucus-race." 

Admirable, too, is the Dodo's way of meeting the 
chief difficulty arising from this novel contest. All 
have won, so all must have prizes, and he solemnly 
bestows Alice's own thimble upon her, as her prize, 
with the usual formula, "We beg your acceptance of 
this elegant thimble." It is not in Wonderland only, 
I believe, that the recipients of testimonials and ad- 
dresses and such things are victimized. Nor is the 
brief dialogue between the old crab and her daughter 
repeated unfrequently by those who ought to know 



248 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

better. The Mouse leaves the company in a huff, 
and the Mamma Crab points the moral: — 

"Ah, my dear. Let this be a lesson to you never 
to lose your temper!" 

"Hold your tongue, Ma!" said the young Crab a 
little snappishly. "You're enough to try the patience 
of an oyster!" 

Again, the excuses made by the Magpie and the 
Canary, for leaving, after Alice's unfortunate allusion 
to her cat "Dinah's" fondness for birds, are the con- 
ventional society excuses, and, like the other citations, 
of the nature of a formula. The satire is so light and 
impersonal that the correction is made without 
offence. 

The satiric intention is plainly to be seen in the 
summary of the arguments brought forward by the 
King, the Queen, and the Executioner regarding the 
Cheshire Cat. This remarkable animal had a trick 
of grinning persistently; and besides, a habit of van- 
ishing gradually, and appearing in the same manner. 
The manifestations began with the tail and ended 
with the grin, or contrariwise. Sometimes the grin 
was visible for some time after the cat had disappeared. 
Once the King of Hearts wished to have the Cat re- 
moved, and his royal Consort met the difficulty, as 
was her custom, by ordering its immediate execution. 
But this was easier said than done. 



EVERYBODY'S ALICE 249 

The Executioner 's argument was, that you could n 't 
cut off a head unless there was a body to cut it off from; 
that he had never had to do such a thing before, and he 
was n 't going to begin at his time of life. 

The King's argument was, that anything that had a 
head could be beheaded, and that you weren't to talk 
nonsense. 

The Queen 's argument was, that if something was n 't 
done about it in less than no time, she'd have every- 
body executed all round. 

Here the philosopher glances at many arguments 
just as sapient. 

IV 

Forty-nine years is really a very respectable span 
of life for a book. It has outlasted a whole genera- 
tion of mankind, and seen many revolutions in the 
world of thought and outward human activity. Three 
more decades of such swift and sweeping changes, 
and the book will need footnotes and explanations. 
Who knows but some day a Doctor of Philosophy 
may edit it with various Prolegomena and complete 
apparatus criticus; or some Oxford man get his re- 
search degree by a thesis on it. Even now some of the 
allusions need clearing up; for example, those relat- 
ing to the game of croquet. This gentle joyous field- 
sport is classed among athletic pursuits by university 
students in France, but elsewhere it has been driven 



250 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

out by tennis and golf till its memory is in danger of 
perishing. Many of the younger generation have not 
even seen the game, much less played it. I have done 
both and am therefore entitled to an opinion on its 
merits. And I think all those of ripe experience will 
bear me out in my assertions regarding croquet. It 
is the curious property of certain games to arouse 
corresponding feelings in the human breast. Cricket, 
for instance, arouses generous rivalry, bumble-puppy 
the desire for polite conversation, and modern football 
the homicidal instincts of the primitive man. But 
of all the inventions of the Enemy, commend me to 
croquet. It was simply impossible to play the game 
and preserve your self-respect. Every time you left 
the ground, your moral nature was in a more dis- 
hevelled, tattered condition than when you went on. 
The facilities which this insidious amusement provided 
for unfair play were so many and so secure that it 
was not in poor fallen human nature to withstand 
them. Again, I am willing to believe that there have 
been instances of croquet being played in perfect 
good temper; but I have never witnessed the games 
myself or conversed with any one who had. On the 
other hand, I have seen a mature and blameless 
matron try to settle a dispute with a husband to 
whom she was devotedly attached — by means of 
her mallet. The worst of it was, that the game was 



EVERYBODY'S ALICE 251 

a disease, a mania; the croquet microbe swept over 
the whole land, and no constitution was strong enough 
to resist its attacks. Sometimes we think that the 
world is at a standstill and despair of any moral prog- 
ress whatever. At such times, we should remember 
that croquet has fled before the advance of civiliza- 
tion. The description of the game as played in Won- 
derland is hardly exaggerated : — 

The players all played at once without waiting for 
turns, quarrelling all the while, and fighting for the 
hedgehogs; and in a very short time the Queen was in a 
furious passion, and went stamping about and shouting, 
"Off with his head!" or "Off with her head!" about once 
in a minute. 

There is another English institution of greater an- 
tiquity and much more venerable than croquet, our 
invaluable system of Trial by Jury. Every now and 
then there is an agitation to abolish it, and every 
satirist has his fling at it. Dickens, in the famous 
case of Bardell vs. Pickwick, aims his darts chiefly at 
the methods of the opposing counsel. The climax of 
Alice's adventures is the trial of the Knave of Hearts 
upon the historic charge of stealing the tarts; the 
judge and jury have the trial to themselves; and their 
ways are peculiar. 

The twelve jurors were all writing very busily on 
slates. "What are they all doing?" Alice whispered to 



252 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

the Gryphon. "They can't have anything to put down 
yet, before the trial's begun." 

"They're putting down their names," the Gryphon 
whispered in reply, "for fear they should forget them 
before the end of the trial." 

The average juryman has not a very good name for 
intelligence and often has to meet the charge of mud- 
dling evidence. Perhaps no more lively way of exhib- 
iting this failing than the Wonderland jury's mode of 
dealing with important testimony. 

The first witness was the Hatter. He came in with a 
teacup in one hand and a piece of bread-and-butter 
in the other. "I beg pardon, Your Majesty," he began, 
"for bringing these in; but I hadn't quite finished my 
tea when I was sent for." 

"You ought to have finished," said the King. "When 
did you begin?" 

The Hatter looked at the March Hare, who had fol- 
lowed him into the court, arm-in-arm with the Dor- 
mouse. "Fourteenth of March, I think it was," he said. 

"Fifteenth," said the March Hare; 

"Sixteenth," said the Dormouse; 

"Write that down," the King said to the jury, and 
the jury eagerly wrote down all three dates on their 
slates, and then added them up, and reduced the an- 
swer to shilling and pence. 

This is, of course, but a concrete way of represent- 
ing the confusion in the mind of the average citizen 
in the jury-box. A child can grasp the fact, when put 



EVERYBODY'S ALICE 253 

in this way. It would be pleasant to dwell on the 
other humours of the trial, but it is better to send the 
curious to the book itself. The Judge's inclination for 
Jedwood justice, — verdict first, trial afterward, — 
his futile facetiousness, his brilliant interpretation of 
documentary evidence, the suppression of the guinea- 
pigs, the contumacy of the Cook, who refused to tes- 
tify, are too good to be spoiled by compression and 
must be read in the original. But one part seems to 
have been written in anticipation of the Dreyfus trial 
and the part played in it by the famous bordereau. 

"There's more evidence to come yet, please Your 
Majesty," said the White Rabbit, jumping up in a 
great hurry: "This paper has just been picked up." 

"What's in it?" said the Queen. 

"I haven't opened it yet," said the White Rabbit, 
"but it seems to be a letter, written by the prisoner to — » 
to somebody." 

"It must have been that," said the King, "unless it 
was written to nobody, which isn't usual, you know." 

"Who is it directed to?" said one of the jurymen. 

"It isn't directed at all," said the White Rabbit; 
"in fact, there's nothing written on the outside." He 
unfolded the letter as he spoke, and added — "It isn't 
a letter after all: it's a set of verses." 

"Are they in the prisoner's handwriting?" asked 
another of the jurymen. 

"No, they're not," said the White Rabbit, "and 
that's the queerest thing about it." (The jury all looked 
puzzled.) 



254 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

"He must have imitated somebody else's hand," 
said the King. (The jury all brightened up again.) 

"Please Your Majesty," said the Knave, "I didn't 
write it, and they can't prove that I did: there's no 
name signed at the end." 

"If you didn't sign it," said the King, "that only 
makes the matter worse. You must have meant mischief, 
or you'd have signed your name like an honest man." 

All these flashes of fun do not by themselves make 
up the book. Apart from veiled and gentle satire, 
there is another humorous element which can be en- 
joyed by young and old alike, — I am speaking of 
English stock. This is the incongruous in words, 
the absurd, or nonsense. This is language where 
faint, illusory mirages of meaning vanish, language 
which triumphantly resists all efforts at logical anal- 
ysis and sometimes even parsing. For three centuries 
it has formed part of our intellectual bill-of-fare. 
Shakespeare, who is such a thoroughly national poet, 
is very fond of this device. Witness Bottom's "Rag- 
ing rocks," etc., and above all Ancient Pistol's nice 
"derangement of epitaphs," as in the famous skit on 
Marlowe. "These be good humours, indeed!" An- 
cient Pistol is surely the true great-great-very-great- 
grandfather of Mrs. Malaprop, ■ whose views on 
female education are so well known. 

As good an instance as any is Touchstone's mysti- 
fication of the country boy, Corin. 



EVERYBODY'S ALICE 255 

Corin. And how like you this shepherd's life, Master 
Touchstone? 

Touch. Truly, shepherd, in respect of itself, it is a 
good life, but in respect that it is a shepherd's life, it is 
naught. In respect that it is solitary, I like it very well; 
but in respect that it is private, it is a very vile life. 
Now, in respect that it is in the fields, it pleaseth me well; 
but in respect it is not of the Court, it is tedious. As 
it is a spare life, look you, it fits my humour well; but, 
as there is no more plenty in it, it goes against my 
stomach. 

The Duchess runs Touchstone close when she gives 
Alice this piece of excellent advice : — 

" Be what you would seem to be, — or, if you'd like 
it put more simply, — never imagine yourself not to be 
otherwise than what it might appear to others that what 
you were or might have been was not otherwise than 
what you had been would have appeared to them to be 
otherwise." 

Most of us will share Alice's bewilderment over 
this oracular saying, and agree that it would be much 
easier to follow if it were written down; and rejoice 
that the Duchess did not carry out her threat, 
"That's nothing to what I could say if I chose." 

There is wisdom as well as wit in this nursery 
classic. Indeed, it was a professor of metaphysics 
who described it as " a wise little book." The Duchess, 
as we know, is very fond of finding morals in every- 
thing; sometimes she evolves mere incongruities, but 



256 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

sometimes she hits the mark with a maxim of uni- 
versal importance. By the simple misplacement of a 
letter or two, she lifts the familiar old adage which 
recommends economy in small things into another 
and equally important sphere. The nation of shop- 
keepers expressed the result of long experience and 
observation in this tenet of proverbial philosophy, 
"Take care of the pence, and the pounds will take 
care of themselves." At a single stroke, the Duchess 
transformed the musty proverb and widened its ap- 
plication a thousandfold. "Take care of the sense, 
and the sounds will take care of themselves." If only 
public speakers, reciters, orators, political debaters, 
lecturers, preachers, and professors would attend to 
this fundamental precept, what verbiage should we 
not be spared! If on everyday matters, people paid 
more attention to the matter than to the manner of 
their discourse, how much spite, gossip, and scandal 
would cease! But how our social intercourse would 
be curtailed ! If we made this a rule of lif e, could we 
maintain clubs, or organize afternoon teas? 

In truth, underneath all this surface sparkle of 
wit, and fun, grotesque, and incongruity flows a deep 
serene current of true wisdom. Without the second, 
the first is impossible. "It takes a wise man to play 
the fool." 



EVERYBODY'S ALICE 257 



From still another point of view, this child's story- 
book has what may without exaggeration be called a 
scientific importance. A German psychologist might 
call it "Ein beitrag zur Psychologie des Traumens," 
or a contribution to our knowledge of the phenom- 
ena of dreaming. Perhaps the most widely observed 
and most puzzling of all mental phenomena are the 
phenomena of dreaming. All peoples, all literatures 
have noted and recorded them. Except in rare 
instances they are the most difficult to recall or to 
fix. "As a dream when one awaketh," says the text, 
in order to compare two of the most fleeting and 
evanescent of things. "I have had a most rare 
vision," says Bottom the weaver. "I have had a 
dream — past the wit of man to say what dream it 
was. . . . Methought I was — there is no man can 
tell what. Methought I was, — and methought I 
had, — but man is but a patched fool, if he will 
offer to say what methought I had." Dreams are 
vivid enough; but how hard to recall them when 
our senses are completely alert. Sometimes we 
can re- tell these strange freaks of subconsciousness; 
but this is not the rule, rather the exception. 
The main outlines we may retrace; but the details, 
the attending circumstances, the atmosphere of 



258 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

reality in which the marvels took place, escape us 
altogether. How can we make words give back im- 
pressions so vivid, so confused, so seeming real at the 
time, so unreal afterwards? Yet this most difficult 
literary feat is accomplished by this child's story- 
book. The child does not perceive this, is not, in 
fact, meant to perceive this ; but even a hasty analysis 
will make the author's intention clear. 

In the first place, the border-line between con- 
sciousness and unconsciousness is very faint and hard 
to define. The process of transition from the one 
estate to the other is gradual. In the book, the il- 
lusion is produced by the closest mimicry of reality. 
A tired little girl, on a hot summer's afternoon, is 
resting on a bank beside her sister, when she sees a 
white rabbit run by. The scene is in England where 
the "bunnies" range freely through the fields. There 
is nothing more common than the sight. Alice is still 
awake ; but when she sees the creature take his watch 
out of his waistcoat pocket, the line between asleep 
and awake has been crossed. The dreaming has be- 
gun, but it is only in the last chapter when her sister 
speaks to Alice that we are actually told that this is 
a dream, "a most rare vision." True to experience 
also is the sensation of falling which so soon follows: 
this is produced, observers say, by the stretching of 
the foot an inch or two. In dreams we always fall 



EVERYBODY'S ALICE 259 

slowly, and feel that we can control the motion. In 
falling down the rabbit-hole, Alice has time to take 
jam-pots out of cupboards, to replace them in other 
cupboards farther down, and even to curtsy as she 
descends. Admirably accurate also is the short cross- 
current of thought, where the remembrance of Dinah, 
her cat, diverts the progress of the main dream. 

Once Alice is fairly afoot in Wonderland, marvels 
thicken. A whole pack of cards take part in the story. 
Gryphons and Mock-Turtles dance the lobster quad- 
rille. Croquet is played with live flamingoes for 
mallets, and live hedgehogs for balls. In the mind of 
Alice, two feelings alternate, — calm acceptance of 
the marvellous as perfectly natural, and the faint 
protest of reason against the strange happenings, or, 
perhaps I should say, the attempt to rationalize them. 
Sudden appearances or unexplained disappearances, 
events however strange, do not surprise us in the 
world of dreams, but generally the mind makes an 
effort to relate them to ordinary experience. When 
the White Rabbit mistakes Alice for the housemaid, 
and sends her off for his gloves, she obeys, but is not 
surprised. Only by degrees does the oddity of the 
situation dawn upon her. 

"How queer it seems," Alice said to herself, "to be 
going messages for a rabbit! I suppose Dinah '11 be send- 
ing me on messages next!" And she began fancying the 



260 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

sort of thing that would happen: "Miss Alice! come 
here directly, and get ready for your walk!" "Coming 
in a minute, nurse ! but I 've got to watch this mouse- 
hole till Dinah comes back and see that the mouse does n't 
get out! Only I don't think," Alice went on, "that 
they 'd let Dinah stop in the house, if it began ordering 
people about like that." 

Another constant phenomenon of dream life, which 
is most vividly portrayed, is the inexplicable way 
images present themselves, and then fade into nothing- 
ness. Alice is going to play croquet; she finds a live 
flamingo in her hands; a little later, the game is over, 
and no more mention is made of it. Neither its com- 
ing nor its going is explained. Nor is there felt to be 
any need of explanation. Everything happens in ac- 
cordance with a new set of laws, which govern this 
strange mental state in which the absurd is accepted 
as the real. The most famous instance is the Cheshire 
Cat, whose grin appeared long before the rest of the 
animal, and remained when all else of it had vanished. 
And our author follows his own maxim, "Adventures 
first; explanations take such a dreadful time." 

Another well-known sensation of dreaming is the 
wilful opposition, the malicious contrariety of things. 
For instance, you dream that you are going on a 
journey; you get to the station or the steamer and 
find that your luggage has not come; or you get into 
the wrong train, or (my own favourite nightmare) 



EVERYBODY'S ALICE 261 

you have n't money enough to buy your ticket. So 
Alice is ordered about by the animals, made to repeat 
lessons and verses, snubbed by the Caterpillar, bored 
by the Duchess. Allied to this, or another phase of 
it, is what may be called reaching out after the un- 
attainable. You wish to go somewhere, or to do 
something, and find yourself perpetually balked and 
disappointed. Alice sees, through the little door, the 
beautiful garden, with its fountains and flowers; but 
she is too large to squeeze through, and when she is 
small enough, the key that will admit her is on the 
glass table out of her reach. It is a pleasure to the 
reader, when, after many mischances, she at last finds 
her way into that Enchanted Ground. 

Interesting, too, and true to fact, is the concrete 
way in which the return to consciousness is pictured. 
There is first the return of courage, and then, of reason 
half alert and working drowsily. Poor Alice has been 
tremendously bullied and made to feel literally very 
small ; but at last she feels herself regaining her natural 
size. Then the formalities of the court-room, the fury 
of the Queen have no terrors for her. 

"Hold your tongue!" said the Queen, turning purple. 
"I won't," said Alice. 

"Off with her head!" the Queen shouted at the top 
of her voice. Nobody moved. 

"Who cares for you?" said Alice (for she had grown 



262 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

to her full size by this time). "You 're nothing but a 
pack of cards!" 

At this, the whole pack rose up into the air, and came 
flying down upon her; she gave a little scream, half 
of fright and half of anger, and tried to beat them off, 
and found herself lying on the bank, with her head in 
the lap of her sister, who was gently brushing away some 
dead leaves that had fluttered down from the trees upon 
her face. 

This is as faithfully observed as it is admirably 
worded. Every one knows how a noise or slight acci- 
dent has the power to suggest, in some cases, an entire 
dream. Here the falling of the leaves on the child's 
face suggests the assault of the cards; and the trifling 
fright and effort to defend herself effectually arouse 
her. Of course, to describe the fairy-tale as a 
scientific treatise would be to do it an injury; but 
that the fairy-tale has this solid framework of sound 
observation it is impossible to deny. 

What has been said will go far to account for 
" Alice's "'■ great and ever-increasing popularity. 
There is a very great difference between careful 
and flimsy work; and in order to value the "Alice" 
books rightly, it is only necessary to examine 
any one of the hundred melancholy imitations of 
them; for there is a definite type or fashion of child's 
story brought into existence by their originality and 
freshness. Photographers have so perfected their art 



EVERYBODY'S ALICE 263 

that the different motions of a bird on the wing, of a 
horse in full gallop, of a bullet from the muzzle of a 
rifle, are caught and fixed to the most minute detail. 
Our author has triumphed over difficulties almost as 
great. He has made words, simple words that chil- 
dren understand and delight in, do the work of the 
sensitive plates. They have caught and they hold in 
cold print those fleeting impressions of an experience, 
which though universal is the hardest to make com- 
prehensible. The process of dreaming is, as it were, 
arrested at various stages, and we have time to ex- 
amine each of them as clearly as we care to. Under 
correction, be it stated, nothing better in this kind 
exists. 

VI 

Apt as the mere words are, and cunningly as they 
are joined together, they would miss something of 
their effect without the pictures. As Alice thought, 
"What is the use of a book without pictures and 
conversations?" Indeed, it is almost impossible to 
imagine "Alice," without the illustrations. Pictures 
are not always an aid to the understanding of books; 
very often, they only spoil one's ideas; the illustrated 
books which are unqualified successes are very 
rare. But in this case the talent of the artist 
has been so happily inspired by the talent of the 



264 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

writer that each heightens the effect produced by the 
other. 

The artist is the second, not the first, but he has 
entered so thoroughly into the spirit of the text that 
his interpretation is well-nigh perfect. Without him, 
we should never have realized to the full the delight- 
ful fatuity of the King of Hearts, or the ferocity of 
his terrible consort with the penchant for beheading 
all who offended her, or the fussiness of "Brer Rab- 
bit," or the immense dignity of the Caterpillar. His 
skilful pencil has created a whole gallery of portraits. 
There is the March Hare with the wisp of hay about 
his ears, and the Hatter with the advertising ticket 
on his "topper'': the wild light in their eyes tells the 
tale of their insanity. In striking contrast to their 
eccentric demeanour is the reposeful manner of the 
Dormouse, whose ideal of life has been so admirably 
summed up as "Nuts ready cracked, and between 
nuts, sleep." Here are many ingenious turns in the 
plates. The most original conception of all is the 
melancholy Mock-Turtle who was once a real turtle. 
For this the artist found no hint in the text; so he 
grafted the head, tail, and hind legs of a calf on the 
carapace and fore-flippers of a tortoise; and a more 
woe-begone beast it would be hard to find in fact or 
fable. I have always wanted to know Ruskin's opin- 
ion of the Gryphon, having in mind his famous crit- 



EVERYBODY'S ALICE 265 

icism of the Lombardic and Renaissance griffins in 
"Modern Painters." Are the lion and eagle natures 
perfectly fused in it? Would the motion of this crea- 
ture's wings give it the earache? In my humble judg- 
ment, it seems a most satisfactory result of the con- 
structive imagination. As he lies asleep, in the way 
of Alice and the Duchess, he looks like a coiled steel 
spring. When his hand is perfectly free, our artist is 
perhaps even more amusing. The humours of the 
trial scene are almost wholly original and admirable, 
the finest, perhaps, being the portraits of the counsel, 
— an eagle, a crow, and a parrot, all in barrister's 
robes and wigs. In the second part of the trial, where 
the King- Judge is explaining so lucidly to the jury 
the verses imputed to the Knave, all the lawyers are 
sound asleep. Most of all are we grateful for the pic- 
tures of Alice. She is not a perfect heroine. She has 
her little tempers, is not exactly philosophical in dis- 
tress; nor is she altogether free from certain affecta- 
tions and a desire to show off. But this is the worst 
that can be said of her. She is a capital representa- 
tive of the finest race of children in the world, a sub- 
stantial, graceful, well-groomed, innocent, fresh-faced 
little English lass, "And sweet as English air could 
make her." There is a certain national primness in 
all her attitudes, suggestive of nursery governesses and 
extremely well-regulated families. She is a little gentle- 



266 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

woman, never forgetting her manners. The finest 
grotesque, to my mind, is the picture in which she 
appears with the baby in her arms that turned, dream- 
fashion, into a pig. The contrast between the sweet, 
shy, wondering face of the lovely child and the smug 
vulgarity of the little porker's phiz is simply delight- 
ful. It is Titania, Queen of the Fairies, caressing 
Nick Bottom the weaver, over again. Memorable, 
also, is Alice's comment on the transformation: — 

"If it had grown up," she said to herself, "it would have 
made a dreadfully ugly child; but it makes rather a hand- 
some pig, I think." And she began thinking over other 
children she knew, who might do very well as pigs. 

And who is the artist? Some young lady, with a 
talent for draughtsmanship? Some student in the 
Academy schools? Not at all. The illustrator of 
this child's story-book is the veteran artist, Sir 
John Tenniel, who for forty years probably did as 
much as any one man to form English opinion on 
political and social questions. For forty years his 
cartoons had the place of honour in "Punch." They 
have been collected in two volumes, and consti- 
tute a pictorial history of the period. They have 
noticeably increased, not fallen off in power, and some 
of them, such as "General Fevrier turned Traitor," 
on the death of Czar Nicholas, and "Dropping the 



EVERYBODY'S ALICE 267 

Pilot," on the dismissal of Bismarck, are of European 
interest and importance. His portrait shows a worn, 
hard face, rather stern, like that of a general who had 
seen many campaigns. It seems like condescension 
for an artist of this importance to make pictures for 
children; but Tenniel did not think it beneath him. 
The opinion of Mr. Pennell, who is well qualified to 
judge, is that, from the artist's point of view, Ten- 
niel's Alice drawings are his very best work. 



VII 

Of a more important personage still, that is to say, 
the author himself, I have, as the scientific gentleman 
said at the christening, no facts to communicate; or 
at least very few. Every one knows that he was a 
mathematical Don at the most aristocratic college in 
Oxford ; and that Lewis Carroll is merely a pen-name, 
well exchanged for his real, jaw-breaking, patronymic, 
Dodgson. In private life, he was most pleasant and 
unassuming. An old bachelor, he was a most devoted 
friend of children, delighting to entertain them in his 
rooms, getting up plays for them to act, and keeping 
elaborate mechanical toys for their amusement. He 
seems to have been a recluse, representing the most 
conservative, not to say reactionary, Oxford type of 
scholar. He avoided notoriety, did not write for the 



268 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

magazines, was never interviewed. Nine men out of 
ten, on making such a hit as "Alice," would be 
tempted to rush at once into the market with hasty 
replicas of his first success. But Lewis Carroll did 
no such thing: he waited, and in thirty years, wrote 
just two other similar books. It is surprising how little 
is known about him : a biography has been published 
since his death, but the further facts contained are 
astonishingly few and unimportant. But little more 
is needed to make him known to us. The man who 
created Alice and told the tale of her adventures is a 
brother to all the world. We know him as well as if 
we had lived under the same roof with him. To me, 
the most striking fact is his devotion to mathematics, 
"the hard-grained muses of the cube and square." 
In fact, I am almost tempted to open a digression, 
after the manner of Swift, on the ways and traits of 
mathematicians. I have known one or two of first- 
rate ability and I have heard traditions of the demi- 
gods of the science. The popular notion of the mathe- 
matician is a Mr. Dry-as-dust, constructed out of 
conic sections and talking in algebraic formulae. My 
observation runs traverse to all this. The most salient 
feature in their characters is mirthfulness, not to say 
frivolity. One Canadian who went to the greatest 
university on the Continent, and straightway solved 
some problems which had puzzled the professors 



EVERYBODY'S ALICE 269 

themselves, is known in private life as an irrepressible 
punster and practical joker. It is the reaction, I sup- 
pose, from the strain of abstruse thought. The great- 
est of them all, Sylvester, though verging on three- 
score and ten, had a weakness for writing tender 
verses to young ladies. 

We had — alas ! we have no longer — in our own 
little college a fine example of mathematical mirth- 
fulness. He was not more famous for his ability as a 
teacher than for his genial wit, his good sayings, some- 
times rather caustic, to say nothing of his skill in 
chess, in whist, with the flute, and with the fishing- 
rod. No more convincing instance could be found of 
the exhilarating influence of lifelong mathematical 
study. It is enough to make us forswear every other 
pursuit and branch of learning. Lewis Carroll had 
this gift of humour of a very rare and delicate kind, 
and a polished Oxonian wit, like Melissa's "hitting 
all . . . with shafts of gentle satire, kin to charity!" 
His book is sufficient proof of this; and there are 
confirmatory tales like those of the French king al- 
ready cited. 

The real man, the essence of his character, comes 
out in an after note, the appendix called "The Easter 
Greeting," first printed in 1876. Few noted it, or 
perceived its significance. Here, speaking in his own 



270 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

person, our author lays bare his own motives, and 
reveals unsuspected riches of character. Its tenor 
may be known from one extract : — 

And if I have written anything to add to those stores 
of innocent and healthy amusement that are laid up in 
books for the children I love so well, it is surely some- 
thing I may hope to look back upon without shame and 
sorrow (as how much of life must be then recalled!) 
when my turn comes to walk through the valley of 
shadows. 

Not then, as a merejeu <T esprit of a busy thinker, 
not merely as a diversion of the nursery, are we to 
regard this tale of Wonderland ! To the author, the 
book is a serious effort, an achievement; and we may 
well adopt his point of view; for the significance of it 
lies deep. It is in fact one symptom of a great change 
which has taken place about us silently, almost with- 
out our knowledge, a change in our attitude toward 
the child. The child's book of the Early Victorian type 
was severely improving. It still retained the impress 
of "Sandford and Merton." Its aim was to improve 
the child's mind by informing him of certain facts 
or his morals by preaching at him. Whatever jam 
there might be was rather poor and acid, and never 
really disguised the taste of the pills. The books 
most in favour were, frankly, twaddle like the inex- 
pressible "Beechnut" and "Rollo" types, or cheerful 



EVERYBODY'S ALICE 271 

little tales of very good little boys and girls, who were 
so very, very good, that they died very young — to the 
mingled distress and edification of parents and friends. 
The old notion was, apparently, that anything was 
good enough for children. Though wit, grace, humour, 
harmony, beauty might be good for grown people, the 
proper elements for the tender, sensitive intelligence, 
in process of growth, was dulness; cheap books, in 
every sense, ill-written, worse printed, with a few 
coarse wood-cuts, filled the nursery shelf. The change 
the last fifty years has seen in the reading matter for 
children amounts to a revolution. Consider, for a 
moment, the portent of our foremost English critic, 
Andrew Lang, editing, with the help of many schol- 
ars, a series of fairy-tales for children; of Tennyson 
writing verses for them; of the most skilful artists in 
the land making pictures for them. Think of the 
magazines for their exclusive benefit; of the annual 
output of books made especially for the little ones; 
and it begins to dawn upon us that this is the chil- 
dren's age. These things would have been regarded 
as absurd a century ago, when children were regarded, 
more or less, as a necessary nuisance. Now, the true 
absurdity lies in failing to study, to understand, and 
rightly to educate the child. To neglect the child is to 
check the progress of the race. In the school as well 
as in the home, this great change is manifest. The 



272 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

rise, growth, and extension of the kindergarten sys- 
tem has had a most beneficial effect on the science 
of education and on philosophy. This new attitude 
toward childhood is one of the most important ideas 
the nineteenth century acquired and handed on. 

Pessimists talk gloomily of coming evils, loss of 
faith, the madness, misery, and sin of the masses, the 
weakness of governments everywhere, the greed and 
insolent power of capital; and there is evil enough at 
our very doors to make the most selfish and comfort- 
able and unthinking of us ill at ease at times. But 
there are great and subtle forces working silently 
about us for good. A living book is a great power. 
Ruskin says that the imagination in its play is either 
mournful or mischievous; and that it is a most diffi- 
cult thing to invent a fairy-tale which is neither the 
one nor the other. But this, Lewis Carroll has done. 
His book has influenced and will influence hundreds 
and thousands of children; and that influence can 
only be for good. His own attitude toward the work 
of his hand is most significant. Tiny and humble as 
the book may seem, almost unimportant, it manifests 
the spirit of a very wise Teacher, who spoke many 
weighty words, but kept his tenderest for the little 
children. 



VIRGIL 



VIRGIL 

degli altri poeti onor' e lume 
I 

IF it be written, as Capulet's servant avers, that the 
shoemaker should meddle with his yard, and the 
tailor with his last, the fisher with his pencil, and the 
painter with his nets, no lengthened apology is neces- 
sary for a teacher of English who meddles with Virgil. 
Besides, I hope to show that the relation of Virgil to 
English literature is closer than is generally suspected, 
and, by so doing, explain and justify my presence in 
this particular classical galley. In order to make my 
position quite clear, I must risk the reproach of ego- 
tism and offer frankly some autobiographic details, 
believing as I do that my experience, in part at least, 
is typical. I speak as a Canadian to Canadians. 

At a certain stage of his journey through the wil- 
derness of this world, the pilgrim I know most about 
lighted upon a Canadian High School, and began the 
study of Latin. He learned to con mensa, mensm in 
Harkness, and went through declension and conjuga- 
tion in the orthodox way, writing prose exercises and 
translating easy sentences until the time came to at- 

27s 



276 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

tack a real author. To this day he remembers the 
point in the dark backward and abysm of time, when 
he was confronted with the page of Virgil containing 
the lesson for the coming day. The volume had come 
down to him from his father's school-days, and was 
in fact the text which the learned Carolus Ruasus, 
S.J., prepared for the use of His Serene Highness, the 
Dauphin of France, in the seventeenth century, vita, 
inter pretatio, notce, index vocabulorum, and all. The 
lesson was a few lines of the second "y£neid," and 
to this day I recall vividly the baffled feeling, when 
face to face with the text. I felt that there was a 
meaning in those words, if it could only be got at; but 
they seemed all the same. There appeared to be no 
way of distinguishing them. They might have been 
a uniformed Roman legion, close-ranked in battle ar- 
ray, determined to keep out the Northern barbarian, 
or a labyrinth of grey boulders all the same shape and 
size, a labyrinth without a silken clue, without an 
Ariadne. Little by little the path opened, and the 
tale of Troy divine, as Father iEneas discoursed it 
from his lofty couch, took form and awakened interest. 
In spite of this particular pupil's idleness and lack of 
proper instruction, he could not altogether miss the 
subtle charm of the Roman poet's grand style. Dull 
as he was, he did not altogether fail to catch the pene- 
trating Virgilian cry in the moving tale of the Sea- 



VIRGIL 277 

priest and his sons, and the phrase — parva duorum 
Corpora natorum — touched him with its pathos and 
could not be shaken from the memory. But it was 
many a long day before he was to attain to any- 
thing like a just appreciation of the poet or his 
work. 

One reason for this is that the merits of Caesar and 
Horace are more to the taste of the average boy than 
the peculiar excellence of the great Mantuan. A 
stirring story told in crisp soldier fashion, and well- 
bred man-of-the-world sentiment, wit, or playfulness, 
are much more likely to impress the unformed mind 
than the dignity of the great Virgilian style, or the 
tenderness and nobility of the Virgilian thought. Not 
that I realized then why I took but little interest 
in Virgil: but looking back from the man's point of 
view to the boy's, I can understand it now. Another 
reason lay in the teaching. I do not wish to disparage 
my teachers. They were both honest, painstaking 
men, who did their duty by us. I remember them 
with affection, but I still have something of a grudge 
against them, that they did not give us the guidance 
really needed. How we acquired them I cannot say, 
but the notion certainly did prevail in the class that 
the only reasons why any one should study Latin 
were that it was required for examinations, and helped 
druggists to read the labels on their jars. The trouble 



a 7 8 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

was that we never saw the wood for the trees. Latin 
words we studied; but Latin literature, never. Syn- 
tax, grammar, scansion, there was, good measure, 
pressed down, heaped together, and running over; 
but real feeling for the language there was not. Still 
less was there any feeling for style. And I am afraid 
that in twenty years there has been little improve- 
ment. Only last summer I heard a lesson in Virgil in 
a model Ontarian High School; and it had both the 
excellences and the defects of the system under which 
I was trained. The fault does not really lie at the 
door of the teachers. It is a lamentable fact that the 
English tradition of elegant classical scholarship has 
never really taken root in this country, and the study 
of Greek and Latin literature has had to make head 
against the crude democratic demand for immediate 
utility, which means for an educational article which 
can be, as soon as possible, turned into dollars and 
cents. The cause of education in our country could 
hardly be better served than by leavening our Cana- 
dian schools with some scores of Oxford men. This is, 
of course, easier said than done. The healthy Cana- 
dian youth objects to being patronized; the Oxonian 
is a delicate exotic, hard to acclimatize; and above 
all, first-class men are few. The happiest solution 
would be obtaining Canadian teachers with English 
training. Something has been done already. The 



VIRGIL 279 

recent drawing together of our foremost Canadian 
university and the two famous homes of English 
culture by the Isis and the Cam, will set a stream 
of student emigration flowing from west to east, from 
which only good can come. 

Before leaving the topic of schools and school- 
masters, I wish to say a word of a third teacher, whom 
every old pupil of a certain collegiate institute will 
recognize under the pseudonym of " Barbarossa." His 
peculiarity was the possession of a relentless driving 
power, for which at least one old pupil is grateful. 
There was a book of Latin prose exercises, of which 
the mystic number seventy had to be prepared for a 
certain examination. At this distance of time, it 
seems to me as if every one of those seventy exercises 
was written on the blackboard, under his eagle eye, 
unto seventy times seven. Besides the knowledge 
this process brought of some scandal about that gross 
materialist Balbus, who lived to eat, and besides the 
permanent acquisition of some golden phrases like 
Negari non potest, and Non est dubium quin, it is 
plain that the training was useful for something more 
than passing examinations. To those hours of un- 
relaxing drill must be credited the fixing in my mind 
of a considerable vocabulary and of a feeling for sen- 
tence-structure. Should this ever meet his eye, he 
may feel assured that one "unprofitable grammarian," 



2 8o LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

as old Harrison has it, is thankful for having been 
forced to work- 
On reaching the university, I found there a system 
which forced men to specialize from the beginning of 
their course, and, worse than that, formed the special- 
ists into opposite camps, Classics, Moderns, Mathe- 
matics, Natural Science, and Metaphysics. Natu- 
rally where the kinship was closest, the feud was most 
bitter, and the battle raged chiefly between the par- 
tizans of the old literature and of the new. None of 
us, in our simplicity, seemed to be aware that the 
quarrel was two hundred years old, and that the last 
gun had been fired by a certain satirical Dean of 
St. Patrick's. With the impetuosity of the undergrad, 
I threw up my cap for the Moderns, and defended 
them against all comers for several years, confirmed 
in my heretical idea that between the two branches 
of European literature there was an irrepressible con- 
flict, and that new lamps were better than old. No- 
body told me that European literature, like European 
history, is one, and that the end is not comprehensible 
without the beginning. Other interests crowded the 
classics to one side for a long time. With some ink- 
ling of the beauty of the " Eclogues," two "Georgics," 
and two "iEneids," I left Virgil behind me at the 
university, practically a book with seven seals. 

The process of awakening was a curious one. The 



VIRGIL 281 

specializing bent remained and worked out its way, 
but happily, it is impossible to study modern lan- 
guages, at any school for specialists, without keeping 
up more than a bowing acquaintance with the forms 
of Latin; and, though literature suffered, touch with 
the language was not altogether lost. At last, what 
may perhaps be called a happy accident led me back 
to Virgil. One night in the middle of a severe bout 
of examination-paper reading, I chanced upon a quo- 
tation from the "^Eneid." I opened a long-disused 
school Virgil to verify the reference, but as that one 
leaf was torn across I could not find it, and struck into 
the middle of the wonderful Fourth Book. I found 
that I could get the meaning without trouble, and 
that that tale of Dido's passion was absolutely fasci- 
nating. It was in a state of enthusiasm that I reached 
the famous 

Vixi, et quern dederat cursum Fortuna peregi, 

which has thrilled many a reader before and since 
Jane Baillie Welsh, aged nine, sacrificed her beloved 
doll in the character of Dido on a pyre of lead-pencils 
and sticks of cinnamon. From that night I became 
a Virgilian, perhaps deserving at times the reproach 
addressed to the young monk who found undue pleas- 
ure in the works of the pagan author. From that time 
my interest burnt like a flame, and the many hours 



a82 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

spent on the beggarly elements of Latin grammar and 
Latin prose now yielded a rich if far-off interest of 
literary pleasure. For a long summer holiday Virgil 
was my constant companion. Much of his poetry 
was read under skies as blue and splendid as those 
that overarch his own beloved Parthenope, and in the 
music of his verse I shall always hear the soft breath- 
ing of summer airs through evergreens, and the wash- 
ing of the ripple against a granite shore. 

Reading the bare text without note or comment of 
any kind, I found many questions cropping up which 
I could put to myself but which I could not answer — 
in regard chiefly to the personality of the author, to 
his sources, to Roman culture, to Roman religion, to 
epic poetry. These had to wait until I could get back 
to books, when I found in Conington's scholarly 
edition and Sellar's sane, close-knit and learned mon- 
ograph the guidance I required, and in the essay of 
Myers, such praise of my author as did my heart 
good, and as I felt accorded him justice. In these 
and other books which might be named, students will 
find ample learning, vouched for by scholars of world- 
wide fame. I speak in no sense as a classic, as one 
with authority, but as a barbarian to fellow barbari- 
ans. My crude notions may call up a gravely amused 
and tolerant smile to the lips of the professed priests 
and guardians of the classical mysteries. This is a 



VIRGIL 283 

record of personal experience, a series of confidences 
set forth in the hope that others who have also wan- 
dered in darkness may feel encouraged to grope for- 
ward to the light. 

II 

At the outset, I wish in the most solemn and public 
manner to abjure and renounce the pestilent heresy 
which had long been losing its hold upon me, that 
there can be real conflict between the old and the 
new. The literature of Europe is one. Modern litera- 
ture has its roots in the past, and no scholar or man 
of culture can feel that he really understands the new 
without a knowledge of the old. Truisms as these 
statements are, there is urgent need for repeating 
them with conviction at this time. 

Beginning the "^Eneid" is like setting out upon a 
broad and beaten highway, along which countless 
feet have passed in the course of nineteen centuries. 
It is a spiritual highway, winding through every age 
and every clime. Thousands have passed this way 
before you, and if you give your thoughts free wing 
down this strange pathway of the fancy, they carry 
you to many a strange scene, — to the pensive cita- 
del of many a lonely student, to many a monkish 
scriptorium, where pious brothers wrote the "Pollio" 
as carefully as the "Horae," and illuminated its mar- 



284 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

gins as gaily, — to the maiden bower of many a learned 
princess, a Lady Jane Grey, an Elizabeth prisoner, — 
to the quaint printing-rooms of Aldus and Stephanus 
and Elzevir, — to Avignon and Vaucluse, — to the 
court of Charlemagne, — to the Rucellai Gardens, to 
the Esquiline and the pleasance of Maecenas. To 
many it has been a via dolorosa, down which genera- 
tion after generation of flagellants have passed with 
tears and extreme reluctance. On that long road there 
are the strangest meetings, at "unset steven." In a 
charming passage in " Ebb-Tide," Stevenson pictures 
two university men on the shore of an island of the 
Pacific, finding common ground in capping a line from 
the "iEneid," and he moralizes on the delights of 
being caned for Virgil so that it becomes a possession 
for after years. The price of many stripes may not be 
too great to pay, but personally, I am thankful that 
I read only a small portion of Virgil in school. The 
bits I read then are precisely those I take least inter- 
est in now. 

The first impression the epic made upon me was 
that of grandeur. I could understand, without a trace 
of resentment, why men who were born to such a 
language, and took pleasure in such a poem, would 
look down upon the speech of the German and English 
tribesmen as barbarous. To go straight from Augus- 
tan Latin to "Beowulf" or the "Edda" or the "Ni- 



VIRGIL 285 

belungenlied," or even to Shakespeare and to Goethe 
at their best, makes you feel that the language as 
language is inferior. By comparison, even the English 
of the "Midsummer Night's Dream," or the German 
of "Faust," is, as Byron said, "our harsh, Northern, 
whistling, grunting guttural." Perhaps the greatest 
charm of Virgil is "lo bello stile," which Dante felt 
did him such honour, and which Tennyson has termed, 
in justifiable superlative, "the stateliest measure ever 
moulded by the lips of man." 

An example or two will help to make this clear. 
Readers of "Comus" will remember the fine line 
Milton flings in gratuitously near the beginning — 

An old and haughty nation proud in arms, 

as descriptive of the Welsh temper. The line has the 
Miltonic ring and the unmistakable air of Miltonic 
distinction, but it is really only giving back in Eng- 
lish a Virgilian line both in word and feeling — 

Hinc populum, late regem, belloque superbum. 

What impresses the English reader of Milton, the 
happy union of sonorous word-music with dignified 
phrase, and deep feeling, is present in at least an equal 
degree in Virgil. If we understand the verse nearest 
to us, we can hope to appreciate the one more remote. 
If we understand both, we have a greater pleasure 



286 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

in reading Milton, the pleasure of literary reminis- 
cence. In a very subtle way, the sentiment of the 
Virgilian phrase seems to blend with Milton's in the 
quoted line, to reinforce and to enhance it. 

Ill 

At this point it may be well to deal with what is 
commonly termed Virgil's plagiarism. When young 
persons are told that the "Eclogues" are an imitation 
of Theocritus, that the "Georgics" are imitated from 
Hesiod, and that the "^Eneid" is not only modelled 
on the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey," but that whole 
episodes and many lines are taken bodily from the 
older epics, they feel that their author stands con- 
victed of literary petty larceny. In the rashness of 
youth, they conclude at once that he has shown great 
weakness, and proved that his work is inferior to that 
from which he borrows. Now, Virgil wrote for a re- 
fined and learned court circle, with whom Greek lit- 
erature was a passion ; and it was of deliberate design 
that he modelled his work upon the Greek. The reap- 
pearance in the Latin poet of a favourite line, phrase, 
idea, situation, episode transmuted into something 
precious and national, gave his Roman audience the 
same pleasure that we feel in the reappearance of 
Virgil's phrase in Milton's line. In regard to what is 
commonly called plagiarism, I hold that those should 



VIRGIL 287 

take who have the power. 1 The literary weakling 
merely translates, and the purple patch shames the 
fustian about it; the man of genius transmutes. If he 
take gold, or silver, or even baser metal, he fuses all 
together into a Corinthian brass more precious than 
gold itself. Dry den says rather flippantly: "The poet 
who borrows nothing from others is yet to be born; 
he and the Jews' Messias will come together"; while 
Voltaire goes further, holding that if Homer created 
Virgil, it was the best thing he ever did. Shelley's 
judgment is: "Virgil, with a modesty that ill became 
his genius, had affected the fame of an imitator, even 
while he created anew all that he copied"; and so the 
list goes on. Lately the question has assumed an in- 
ternational aspect. Virgil has always been the chief 
poet of the Latin races ; the French in particular have 
never wavered in their allegiance to him; but within 
our own century the great impulse toward the study 
of naive literature, ballads, folklore, primitive epics, 
has tended to depose Virgil in favour of Homer. Over 
this point a long battle has raged between the French 
and the Germans. At present, there are signs that in 
English-speaking countries, at least, there is a clearer 
perception of Virgil's peculiar excellences, and al- 

1 "They (poets) import their raw material from any and every- 
where and the question at last comes down to this — whether an 
author have original force enough to assimilate all he has acquired, 
or that be so overmastering as to assimilate him." — Lowell, Chaucer. 



288 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

though he may never again reign supreme, he cannot 
long remain a king in exile, without a crown and 
without devoted subjects. Here again the partizan 
is an absurdity. Whoever aims at the acquisition of 
taste or culture or scholarship should leave his mind 
open to the influence of both the Latin and the 
Greek. 

Another prevalent superstition is the notion that 
the second six books are so inferior to the first six 
that they are practically not worth reading. Now, 
Virgil never surpassed the pictures of the second, the 
passion of the fourth, or the ethics of the sixth, but 
it is known that he did not write the books in their 
present sequence. To despise any of the second six on 
the ground that they are unfinished, is in all probabil- 
ity to stultify one's self. No other book, as a whole, 
equals any one of these mentioned; but single episodes 
and fines of greatest interest abound. To disregard 
the last six books is to disregard Turnus and Camilla. 
Take the seventh, which is not usually quoted, and 
let us look at two or three passages in it chosen al- 
most at random. All readers who have enjoyed the 
short poem of Tennyson's called "Will" remember 
with pleasure the comparison of the strong man to 

— a promontory of rock, 
That compass'd round with turbulent sound, 
In middle ocean meets the surging shock, 
Tempest-buffeted, citadel-crown'd. 



VIRGIL 289 

This is really a Virgilian simile which the poet liked 
so much that he used it twice. In the seventh book, 
Latinus, unshaken in the midst of confusion, terror, 
and adverse counsels, is likened to a rock amid the 
sea: — 

Ille velut pelagi rupes immota resistit: 

Ut pelagi rupes, magno veniente fragore, 

Qua? sese, multis circum latrantibus undis, 

Mole tenet scopuli; nequidquam et spumea circum 

Saxa fremunt, laterique illisa refunditur alga. 

The figure is borrowed, the sentiment is the same ; and 
whoever can appreciate the beauty of the Tennyson- 
ian lines, or the fine ritardando close of the "Deserted 
Village" — 

But self-dependent power can time defy, 
As rocks resist the billows and the sky — 

may feel encouraged to hope that there are new sources 
of pleasure awaiting him in Virgil. Again, interpret- 
ing the older poetry in the terms of English verse, 
whoever feels a thrill of horror as the passing bell of 
Constance de Beverley echoes on the night, is pre- 
pared to enjoy a similar beauty in Virgil. 

Slow o'er the midnight wave it swung, 
Northumbrian rocks in answer rung; 
To Warkworth cell the echoes rolled, 
His beads the wakeful hermit told, 
The Bamborough peasant raised his head, 
But slept ere half a prayer he said; 



290 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

So far was heard the mighty knell 
The stag sprung up on Cheviot Fell, 
Spread his broad nostril to the wind, 
Listed before, aside, behind, 
Then couched him down beside the hind, 
And quaked among the mountain fern, 
To hear that sound so dull and stern. 

The Roman poet's picture is different. At the un- 
earthly sound, even inanimate nature is deeply 
stirred. The human touch is reserved to the last, 
and the comprehending terror of the mothers moves 
us more profoundly than the panic of the dumb crea- 
tures of the wild. At the deadly sound of the war- 
horn blown by the Fury, — 

omne 
Contremuit nemus, et silvae intonuere profunda. 
Audiit et Triviae longe lacus: audiit amnis 
Sulfurea Nar albus aqua, fontesque Velini; 
Et trepidae matres pressere ad pectora natos. 

Virgil never forgets the women and the children. 
War is less terrible for the men, the red slayers and the 
slain, than for those who must bide at home and suffer. 
Virgil's heart is not in the battle, he is really on the 
side of the mothers who curse it. 

It may be hard to bring home the more subtle ef- 
fects of Virgil's style, but it is worth while trying. He 
has a pervading sense of the pathetic, of the tears of 
human affairs, which penetrates all his verse. When 



VIRGIL 291 

he is girding up his loins for the battles of the final 
books, he calls upon the Muses for aid : — 

Pandite nunc Helicona, Deae, cantusque movete, 

The sacred Nine know to what battles the kings were 
roused, what ranked array followed what leaders and 
filled the plains, with what men this Italian land which 
bred me flourished in that age, and with what wars it 
flamed. For the Immortals can remember and they 
have power to tell the tale. 

Ad nos vix tenuis famae perlabitur aura. 

Surely one is not mistaken in seeing here something 
more than the plain statement that barely a faint 
breath of the fame of these deeds has come down to 
us of the later age. Surely there is some feeling of 
the contrast between the knowledge of the Immortals 
and shifting inscience of men; and it cannot be mere 
fancy to suspect behind the words a sense of "things 
done long ago and ill-done," the very sentiment of 
Wordsworth's 

— old, unhappy, far-off things 
And battles long ago. 

The style, then, of Virgil, his own way of utter- 
ing his thought, whatever that thought may be, is 
a perpetual delight. The air of distinction is main- 



292 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

tained from first to last, without effort and without 
harshness. At the same time it would be hard to 
find ten consecutive lines without some turn of 
phrase, some single epithet, some woven harmony of 
words, on which to linger in pleased surprise. Beside 
Shakespeare's Gothic rudeness of form and his divine 
disorder, beside Goethe's long-winded dawdling, his 
"sprawl" after his "spring," Virgil gives you the 
sense of finished workmanship. The temple is com- 
plete from floor to frieze. If the master-builder wished 
to change the setting of some single stone, or carve 
some capital or cornice more delicately, no other eye 
may scan the fault. It is only echoing the praise of 
centuries to call Virgil's an unequalled style. 

IV 

Apart from the constant pleasure derived from the 
mere form, the chief impressions Virgil's poetry left 
upon my mind were three — an impression of civili- 
zation, an impression of tenderness, an impression of 
patriotism. 

The man of the present day finds himself more in 
accord with Virgil than with any other poet of an- 
tiquity, for the man of the present day lives, con- 
sciously or not, under the influence of Christianity; 
and Virgil is the most Christian of the pagan poets. 



VIRGIL 293 

Horace, the Epicurean, who called him "animae dimi- 
dium meae," said also of him that earth bore no whiter 
soul. The men of the middle ages found in him a 
prophet of the Christ. Now whatever else Christi- 
anity has done, it has greatly enlarged the range of 
our sympathies and deepened our emotions. It has 
made the world thoughtful and sad. This thoughtful 
sadness, this range and depth of emotion are charac- 
teristic of Virgil. Those French and German trans- 
lators of the Middle Ages who made his epic a tale of 
chivalry and ^Eneas and Turnus knights-errant have 
been often laughed at for their simplicity. But were 
they not unconsciously right? Virgil is chivalrous in 
his feeling, with the chivalry of the "Idylls of the 
King." He understands as well as the wildest ber- 
serker who ever died under a score of foemen's 
swords, the fitting end of a warrior's life. Geraint — 

— crowned 
A happy life with a fair death, and fell 

In battle fighting — 

And Virgil's fighters — 

, dant funera ferro 
Certantes, pulchramque petunt per volnera mortem. 1 

1 Cf. an sese medios moriturus in enses 

Inferat, et pulchram properet per volnera mortem? 

Cf. also ibid., xi, 154 f. /Eneid ix, 400 f. 



294 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

This primitive feeling is no stranger to such a modern 
as Nelson. But his conception of a " fair death " is far 
grander than that of mere mad, hot-blooded killers. 
England's great captain on the quarter-deck of the 
Victory at Trafalgar, presaging triumph over a con- 
tinent in arms, mindful only of his duty, his country's 
honour, and the conduct of this, his last battle, 
and forgetful of standing weaponless, the stars on his 
breast marking him for death, is a type of courage, 
of which the berserker never dreamed. But Virgil 
feels the stir of sympathy with all disastrous fight. 
Like Milton, he understands that defeat is not defeat, 
if the will remain unconquerable. Such speeches as — 



and 



Tu ne cede malis; sed contra audentior ito, 
Quam tua te Fortuna sinet. 



Disce, puer, virtutem ex me, verumque laborem; 
Fortunam ex aliis 



breathe the "deliberate valour" of the modern man. 
It is to ringing words like these that his heart responds 
most quickly. They brace the spirit for more than 
battle, the life that is all battle. 

In his sadness, too, Virgil speaks for our later world. 
The most majestic example of this feeling is the won- 
dering exclamation of y£neas that souls should wish 
again for earth : — 



VIRGIL 295 

O pater! anne aliquas ad coelum hinc ire putandum est 
Sublimes animas, iterumque in tarda reverti 
Corpora? quae lucis miseris tarn dira cupido? 

Such a thought shows how, nineteen centuries ago, 
the Roman poet bowed beneath 

— the heavy and the weary weight 
Of all this unintelligible world. 

Throughout the "./Eneid" there is a sense of the com- 
plexity of human affairs, a sense of world-wide inter- 
ests bound up with the exploits and responsibilities of 
a dominant race. The acts of the hero demand an 
empire for a stage on which the eyes of the world are 
fixed. Beside the struggle of Rome and Carthage, of 
Octavius and Antony, the death of Harold of Hast- 
ings, of King Olaf under Svald seem without signifi- 
cance. These wars are but as the flocking of kites 
and crows; but Virgil's ^Eneas and Augustus bear up 
the world upon their shoulders. 

The tenderness of Virgil, his sympathy with the 
weak, is perhaps his most lovable quality. His men- 
tion of the sons of Laocoon, of Camilla's baby lips 
and slender limbs, of Silvia's pet stag, of Dido's hands 
dabbled in blood, all show what a deep-hearted poet 
he was. His references to the mothers are especially 
noteworthy. A warrior is slain, but at the moment 
of his hero's victory, Virgil's thought turns to the 



296 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

mother of the dying boy, and to the laborious token 
of her love. 

Transiit et parmam mucro . . . 

Et tunicam, molli mater quam neverat auro. 

One reference has been made already to the mothers 
who have cause to quake for fear. Two more may 
serve to show how well Virgil understands the human 
heart. The youthful warriors in glittering squadrons 
ride out of the city gates; the women cannot go, but 
from the battlements they follow them with their 
eyes, till they are merely a cloud of dust. 

Stant pavidae in muris matres, oculisque sequuntur 
Pulvereamque nubem, et fulgentis aere catervas. 

Again in his wonderful picture of a city sacked, he 
sees the women clinging to the doorposts of their 
homes, and pressing their lips to them in despair. 

Turn pavidae tectis matres ingentibus errant; 
Amplexaeque tenent postes, atque oscula figunt. 

Virgil's poetry, especially the "y£neid," I have 
likened to some great Roman road joining the utmost 
bounds of a widespread country. Like a road, parts 
of it are famous because way-worn men have rested 
at them and found there refreshment and delight. 
In other words, some lines have gathered significance 



VIRGIL 297 

from their association with great names. The most 
famous, perhaps, is the infinitely musical 
Manibus date lilia plenis: 

which Dante heard the Blessed chanting in the Para- 
dise of God. To some these words are sacred, because 
they recall England's veteran statesman strewing 
flowers on the laureate hearse of Tennyson, as he lay 
in the Abbey, that high altar of our race. All roads 
lead to Rome, and Virgil's great poem takes us straight 
to imperial Rome, 1 the mistress of the world. The 
reason for the existence of the "/Eneid" is Virgil's 
patriotism. "The impulse both of poets and histori- 
ans was to build up a commemorative monument; 
not as among the Greeks, to present the spectacle of 
human life in its most animated, varied and noble 
movements." 2 In this year of reminiscence 3 it should 
not be hard for any subject of the British Empire to 
understand Virgil's pride in his country. Place our 
bead-roll of heroes beside the file of those whom 
Anchises pointed out to vEneas in the under-world, or 
those whose deeds were fashioned on the famous 

shield — 

— clipei non enarrabile textum — 

1 The city which thou seest no other deem 
Than great and glorious Rome, Queen of the Earth, 
So far renowned, and with the spoils enriched 
Of nations. Paradise Regained, iv, 44-47. 

1 Sellar, 287. ' Written in 1897. 



298 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

set the battle with the Armada, or Trafalgar beside 
"Actia bella," and we thrill with poet's own deep 
emotion. The most famous expression of it is in 
sublime close of Anchises' speech : — 

Excudent alii spirantia mollius aera, 
Credo equidem; vivos ducent de marmore voltus; 
Orabunt caussas melius; coelique meatus 
Describent radio, et surgentia sidera dicent. 
Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento: 
Hae tibi erunt artes; pacisque imponere morem, 
Parcere subjedis, et debellare superbos. 

The similar limitations and the similar destiny of 
our race should bring home to us the spirit of these 
majestic lines. One English writer, to whom per- 
verse criticism would deny the name of poet, has in- 
fused it into English verse. Macaulay is the most 
patriotic of historians, and he never fails to awaken 
the patriot passion in the breast, even in singing those 
glorious legends of early Rome, which none but a 
brave and high-minded race could have imagined. In 

The stone that breathes and struggles, 
The brass that seems to speak; — 

he comes very close to the first part of the extract. 
The manifest destiny of Roman civilization is brought 
out in such ringing lines as these : — 

Leave gold and myrrh and jewels, 

Rich table and soft bed, 
To them who of man's seed are born 

Whom woman's milk hath fed. 



VIRGIL 299 

Thou wast not made for lucre, 

For pleasure, nor for rest; 
Thou, that art sprung from the war-god's loins, 

And hast tugged at the she-wolf's breast. 

Leave to the soft Campanian 

His baths and his perfumes; 
Leave to the sordid race of Tyre 

Their dyeing vats and looms: 
Leave to the sons of Carthage 

The rudder and the oar: 
Leave to the Greek his marble Nymphs 

And scrolls of wordy lore. 

Thine, Roman, is the pilum: 

Roman, the sword is thine, 
The even trench, the bristling mound 

The legion's ordered line; 
And thine the wheels of triumph, 

Which with their laurelled train 
Move slowly up the shouting streets 

To Jove's eternal fane. 



V 

But it is high time for me to show some reason for 
trespassing on the preserves of the Professor of Clas- 
sics. The indirect influence of Virgil upon English 
literature is seen first in the sway of what may be 
called the Troynovant legend. It can be traced to 
Geoffrey of Monmouth in the twelfth century. Virgil 
was not only transformed into a magician by mediae- 
val fantasy, but his name was one to conjure with. 



3 oo LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

In imitation of iEneas's voyage from Troy to found 
Rome, there springs up a companion piece, the voy- 
age of Brutus, his descendant, to Albion, to found 
New Troy, Troynovant, or London. A parallel tra- 
dition is found in France, whence the myth was con- 
veyed to England in the authority Geoffrey used and 
which he called vetustissimus. The idea flattered the 
national pride. Wace, a Jerseyman, made a French 
poem on Geoffrey's history, and this Layamon, a 
priest of Ernley, again translated and amplified into 
the poem known as "Brut." The basis must be a col- 
lection of Celtic tales; and from the outset, Geoffrey 
and his romance were fiercely assailed, as a fabler 
and fables. Very surprising is the stream of poetry 
this Archdeacon of Monmouth in the twelfth century 
set free to flow as it would. Down to the middle of 
the seventeenth century the myth was generally re- 
garded as fact. Even Milton, although he cannot 
help feeling suspicious, will not rashly set it aside, and 
devotes a large part of the first chapter of his history 
to recounting "descents of ancestry long continued, 
laws and exploits not plainly seeming to be borrowed 
or devised." Elizabethan literature bristles with 
allusions to this legend. As might be expected, Dray- 
ton makes ample use of it in his " Polyolbion " ; and 
finds it necessary to protest against the destructive 
criticism of the time. 



VIRGIL 301 

And they but idly talk upbraiding us with lies 
That Geoffrey Monmouth, first our Brutus did devise, 
Not heard of till his time our Adversary says. 1 

Jasper Fisher has a play with the title "Fuimus Troes 
— The True Trojans," 2 in which occur stanzas like 
these : — 

Ancient bards have sung 

With lips dropping honey, 
And a sugared tongue 

Of our noble knights: 
How Brute did giants tame, 

And by Isis current, 
A second Troy did frame, 

A centre of delights. 

This history of England, "Antiquitee of Faery 
Land," is the book Sir Guyon 3 reads in the castle of 
Alma. From this the material for the first English 
tragedy "Gorboduc" was taken, as well as the ma- 
terial for the greatest, "Lear." Here also we find 
Cymbeline and "Sabrina fair." It is little wonder 
Sir Guyon looked into it "greedily." The material 
of these old tales is certainly Celtic; but for our 
purpose the significant fact is their connection with 
Virgil's epic, and the faint shadowing of the original 
tale. 

1 Polyolbion, x, 243-55; cf- ibid., 219-327. 

2 Dodsley's Old Plays, vn, 411. 

3 Faerie Queene, bk. 11, canto x. 



302 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

The history of the Virgil translations in English 
begins at least as early as the setting-up of the first 
printing-press in the scriptorium at Westminster. 
Caxton made and printed a prose translation of the 
great Mantuan. This performance did not please 
Gavin Douglas, and to shame the Southron and vin- 
dicate Virgil, he made a translation of his own. This 
again was used by the ill-fated Earl of Surrey in his 
translation. Phaer turned the first ten books of the 
"yEneid" into the lolloping " four teeners " so fashion- 
able toward the end of Elizabeth's reign, and the 
work was finished by Twine. The men of the seven- 
teenth and eighteenth centuries are not fond of trans- 
lating Virgil. Ovid and Horace are more to their taste. 
But the number of those who have been tempted to 
try their hand at the hardest of tasks is very great. 
Waller englished part of the fourth "y£neid," as 
did Surrey; Denham translated the second as well as 
the fourth into blank verse. Roscommon turned the 
sixth "Eclogue" into verse, and Cowley, part of the 
second "Georgic." "Glorious John" gave up a large 
part of his old age to making what is still in all prob- 
ability the best complete version of Virgil in our 
language. Addison, as might be expected from his 
character, was drawn to Virgil. His essay on the 
"Georgics" is said to have been written when he was 
twenty-one. Besides, he turned the fourth " Georgic," 



VIRGIL 303 

except the story of Aristasus, into Popian couplets, 
and the episode of Achemenides in the third "^neid" 
into Miltonic blank verse. Few get beyond the 
fourth book; but mention should be made of the ad- 
venturous William Hamilton, of Bangour, who versi- 
fied the incident of Lausus and Mezentius in the 
tenth. 1 Our own age has been especially rich in trans- 
lations of Virgil. Professor Conington made two, one 
in the metre of "Marmion" and one in prose. The 
last poet to undertake the entire "iEneid" was 
William Morris. He used the long " fourteeners " 
which were so effective in "Sigurd the Volsung," but 
they do not please all English critics. Mr. Frederic 
Harrison speaks of the work with scant respect as a 
"marry come up, my merry men men all sort of 
ballad." 2 A really satisfactory version of Virgil in 
English is yet to be made. 

VI 

More direct influence still upon our literature is 
distinctly traceable to Virgil. 3 Langland knows him 
only as the hero of a grotesque mediaeval myth; 4 but 

1 Chalmers, xv, 649. 

1 At the same time Mr. Myers, who must be an excellent judge, 
pronounces it to be "brilliant and accurate." Who shall decide when 
doctors disagree? 

3 It is impossible within the limits of this lecture even to outline 
Virgil's influence upon pastoral poetry from Spenser down. 

4 Piers Plowman, bk. xii, 43 f . 



3o 4 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

his contemporary, Chaucer, finds room for him in 
his "Hous of Fame." In this, he summarizes the 
"iEneid" and slurs over everything but the love- 
story. Dido facinates him. He can hardly tear him- 
self away from the entrancing tale. Not content 
with what he finds in Virgil, he borrows from Ovid's 
"Heroides," and at last, like Shakespeare afterwards, 
he brings in frankly his own variations upon the given 
theme ; — 

Non other auctor alegge I, — 

and he puts a new speech in Dido's mouth. Dido also 
figures in his galaxy of "good women." One other 
sign of his appreciation of Virgil is seen in the way he 
renders the apparition of Venus: — - 

— that day, 
Going in a queynt array; 
As she had been a huntresse, 
With wynd blowinge upon her tresse. 

This is the story which has enthralled the imagina- 
tion of the world. The great Elizabethans teem with 
references to it. Nash and Marlowe made a drama ! 
of it. But in this, as in many other things, Shake- 
speare teaches us, as no one else can. His references, 
outside of "Troilus and Cressida," are nearly all to 
some aspect of the Carthaginian queen's unhappy 

1 Cf. Hayward, The Iron Age, pt. n. 



VIRGIL 305 

love; but he takes most glorious liberties 1 with his 
subject. According to Virgil, Dido slew herself as 
soon as the false Trojan's galleys were hull down on 
the horizon; but Shakespeare has another vision. 
Two young lovers lately wed are watching the moonlit 
heavens in the gardens of Belmont. They give them- 
selves up to the loveliness of the scene, and are so 
full of new-found happiness that they can endure the 
least shadow of a far-off, romantic melancholy: — 

In such a night 
Stood Dido with a willow in her hand 
Upon the wild sea-banks and waved her love 
To come again to Carthage. 

Full moonlight on the sea! Can anything be fuller 
of yearning, except the single lonely figure on the 
shore with its hopeless signal of welcome? But 
Shakespeare sees life in the round. Moving as is the 
love-tale of Dido, it has even its ridiculous side. Two 
epithets do it all: "widow Dido," "widower ^Eneas." 2 
Spring is the only mating-time. The loves of the 
middle-aged do not move us except to laughter. 

Nearer our own day, English poets have given 
utterance to their personal sentiments in regard to 

1 Turberville (Of Dido and the Truth of her Death) justifies her 
against the testimony of Virgil; he holds she slew herself to avoid 
shame. 

2 Tempest, 11, i. 



3 o6 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

Virgil. Dryden calls him his divine master. Cowper 
says that he 

should have deem'd it once an effort vain 
To sweeten more sweet Maro's matchless strain, — 

until Mr. Hayley gave him a copy of Heyne's edition. 
Wordsworth and Matthew Arnold find interest in the 
poet's tomb. Wordworth's greatest joy is in the land- 
scape — 

that delicious Bay 
Parthenope's Domain — Virgilian haunt; 
Illustrated with never-dying verse, 
And by the Poet's laurel shaded tomb, 
Age after age to Pilgrims from all lands 
Endeared. 1 

Arnold feels the contrast between this and Heine's 
resting-place in trim Montmartre. His feeling for 
Virgil is warmer than Wordsworth's. The irregular 
verse bears the accent of deep feeling. 

Ah, I knew that I saw 

Here no sepulchre built 

In the laurell'd rock, o'er the blue 

Naples bay, for a sweet 

Tender Virgil. 

In that fine series of appreciations, her "Vision of 
Poets," Mrs. Browning fails in her praise of Virgil, all 
the more dismally, as the lines on Lucretius, which 

1 Memorials of a Tour in Italy. 



VIRGIL 307 

come next, are a brilliant success. But the last is 
the best. It is curious to think that, after five cen- 
turies of modern English literature, we had to wait 
until the very end for an adequate essay like Mr. 
Myers's, for an adequate poem like Tennyson's. 
The latter written at the request of the Mantuans not 
only masses in a consummate way the chief excellences 
of Virgil, but it shows how near English verse can 
reach to his rich music, and is instinct with one great 
poet's gratitude to another. With it, as with some 
jewelled and embroidered band, too precious for such 
use, I draw together these my poor belated gleanings 
from Virgilian fields : — 

Roman Virgil, thou that singest 

Ilion's lofty temples robed in fire, 
Ilion falling, Rome arising, 

wars, and filial faith, and Dido's pyre. 

Landscape-lover, lord of language, 

more than he that sang the Works and Days; 
All the chosen coin of fancy 

flashing out from many a golden phrase; 

Thou that singest wheat and woodland 

tilth and vineyard, hive and horse and herd; 

All the charm of all the Muses 

often flowering in a lonely word. 

Thou that seest Universal 

Nature moved by Universal mind; 
Thou majestic in thy sadness 

at the doubtful doom of humankind; 



308 LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE 

Light among the vanish'd ages; 

star that gildest yet this phantom shore; 
Golden branch amid the shadows, 

kings and realms that pass to rise no more; 

Now thy Forum roars no longer, 

fallen every purple Caesar's dome — 

Thou, thine ocean-roll of rhythm 

sound for ever of Imperial Rome. 

Now the Rome of slaves has perished, 

And the Rome of freemen holds her place, 

I, from out the Northern Island 

sunder'd once from all the human race, 

I salute thee, Mantovano, 

I that loved thee since my day began, 
Wielder of the stateliest measure 

ever moulded by the lips of man. 



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